Xenogenesis Evangelion
by Masked Doll Victoria
Summary: A generation after the Second Impact, children are being born with strange mutations that make them resemble the creatures of mankinds legendary past. Amidst the battle against the Angels, this new generation struggles to save the world their parents left to them and find what it means to be truly human. Monster Girl/Boy AU.
1. A continual flight from wonder

Fifteen years ago the world as we know it was turned on its head. The event that came to be known as the Second Impact changed the course of human history, killing countless billions and scarring the face of the planet forever. I lived through that hell sealed in a tiny capsule, saved by my father so that I alone could live on into an unknown future.

For all the hardship and awful things that followed, I'd like to think I got off pretty easy compared to the kids who were born after the blast. Not only did they have to deal with the mess we adults left for them, but a lot of them were born looking...weird, with tails, wings, horns, and other things that have no right being part of the human body. No one really knows why or how it happened but we know for sure is that it's connected to the Second Impact somehow.

I really hope that when they all grow up they can forgive my dad's generation for everything that has happened in the last decade or so.

~Misato Katsuragi,

* * *

"Well you're looking rather out of it today, Misato," Ritsuko spoke as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

It was break time at NERV HQ, a few moments set aside everyday so that those who worked within its labyrinthine walls could forget – for a moment, anyway – the fact that the fate of the world rested firmly on their shoulders.

"Stick a can in it, Ritsuko! I was just thinking about the old days." Taking a sip from her coffee-filled mug, Misato stared a the ceiling as she leaned back in her chair.

"Oh really, more of your PSTD-induced flashbacks? Or is this about something else?"

"NO, I told you never to bring that crap up again!" Misato screamed. "But seriously, it's about Rei. Every time I see that girl I can't help but feel a little bad." She took another sip of coffee, this time accompanied by a strained sigh.

"It's not your fault she was drafted to pilot the prototype; its just a simple matter of statistics – she was just the most suitable for the role. That's all," Ritsuko calmly replied.

"It's not that either... just the fact that she looks the way she does. It makes me feel bad about everything my father and everyone else related to the Second Impact did. They doomed these poor kids to grow up looking like monsters just for the sake of some stupid science experiment."

Misato slammed her mug down on the table in front of her in anger, throwing small bits of plaster into the air as it broke apart upon impact.

"Oh, its that again, huh? I know it's hard to see Rei struggle to do everyday things with those wings of hers, but she's getting better every day. Someday in the future I'm sure she'll be able to live a normal life just like you or me. So don't worry about it; just be a good role model to the kids. It's all you can really do for them."

Ritsuko's all-too-logical approach caused Misato to furrow her brow, not because she was angry but rather that her old college friend was completely right.

"Fine, you win, Ritsuko. I can't do much for Rei or any other kids we drag into this war of ours. But I'll try my best to make sure they live a normal life as long as they're under our care."

"I'm sure you will Misato, you've always been everyone's big sister, even back when we were in college together. But, oh...speaking of new kids, I hear we've got a new pilot coming in soon. I'm sure the commander will brief you on the whole thing soon."

"Really? Are they another mutant like Rei?"

"Nope, we managed to snag a normal one this time – and on top of that, he's the commander's son as well."

"Ikari's son?! Wow, I really hope he has a better personality then his dad." Misato said with a sigh as she recalled the cold, calculating manner in which Gendo Ikari ran NERV.

"I really hope so to, Misato. I really do."

Ritsuko's voice and gaze were distant as her mind wandered to other matters. Thoughts of commander Ikari always lay close to the surface of her mind, invoking of feelings of both love and hate from within the core of her being.

"Yo, Earth to Ritsuko. Break's almost up"

Misato waved one hand in front of the science officers face, breaking the reflective trance she had induced upon herself.

"Right...right. Well, I'll see you later. We've got to get unit one online before the new pilot gets here."

"Later, Ritsuko."

Ritsuko left the break room in a hurry, scurrying off to direct the final preparations for the production-model Evangelion before its prospective pilot arrived and the battery of tests to analyze his fitness as a warrior and agent of NERV began. It was hard work, but with the fate of humanity in the balance, it was a job worth doing well.

"A normal kid, huh? I really hope he and Rei get along. The last thing we need around here is more conflict."

Her old friend gone off to work, Misato's quiet missives were heard only by her chipped coffee mug.

* * *

As she left NERV HQ, Rei Ayanami quietly walked to the nearby train station where she would be whisked home to eat a small meal, read a bit for class, and then go to sleep.

As she waited for the train, her school bag held firmly within her claw-like grip, several girls stopped to gawk and stare, giggling and gossiping among themselves as if she was some kind of circus freak.

"Do you think those are real?" the first girl whispered to another in a hushed voice.

"I don't know... maybe she's one of those weird mutants you heard about on TV!" the second girl among them responded in a similar tone.

"That has to be it!" a third yelled.

Rei in turn paid the girls no heed. She had long since grown used to the catcalls and whispers her classmates and even random passersby seemed so fond of hurling in her direction, and while she once took offensive to such statements, she now stood silently in the face of such commentary, providing no fuel to further their ignorant cries.

"If you will excuse me, I'll be going now," Rei spoke as the trained roared into the station.

Silently boarding the mass transit vehicle, she let out a small sigh of relief as she sped away at great speed from the sharply pointed words of those who simply did not understand her or the strange condition that had afflicted her.

Born in the aftermath of Second Impact, Rei, like many of her generation, had been stricken upon birth with a strange condition that had caused her to resemble a strange mixture of a human girl and a great bird. With wings where her arms should be and great talons adorning her feathered legs, she was quite the sight to behold.

Leaving the train, it was only a short walk to the old part of town where concrete structures stood in sharp contrast to the state-of-the-art buildings that made up most of the city. It was there, in one of these relics of the past century, that Rei Ayanami, pilot of Evangelion Unit-00, lived in a lonely apartment by herself.

Provided to her by NERV as a sort of payment for her service, Rei's apartment had been built with a normal human being in mind, making it rather difficult for one who possessed wing and claw to make themselves comfortable and at home. However, with many hours of careful modification, on NERV's dime no less, it had been made livable for Rei's vaguely avian lifestyle.

Rummaging through her bag with one of her wing-set claws, it did not take long for Rei to find her keys and unlock the front door of her tiny apartment. Within their was little that marked the fact that anyone even lived within. In one corner stood a nightstand while in the other lay a modified structure that best resembled a bird's nest and served as Rei's bed. It had been Misato's idea – "She's a bird and bird's sleep in nests right?" being her logic – but one that Rei never found all that amusing... though she did find the nest to be quite comfortable despite how ridicules it looked.

Putting her bag on the old dresser, Rei yawned a mighty yawn, stretching her impressive wingspan to the heavens as she did. It had been a long day between school and her work at NERV and she wanted nothing more in all the world then to lay down in her nest-bed and sleep away the rest of the evening.

With all her reading for the day done during her lunch hour, spent alone of course, Rei could do just that. Laying upon the bed, her wings tucked to the side, she stared longingly at the apartment's lone window that was just high enough to be visible from where she lay. The starry night sky beckoned to her nightly with dreams of flying freely among the clouds and stars. But it was nothing more then a passing whim as, in the ultimate of ironies, her wings did not function as they should. The human body was not meant for flight and, even with her unique anatomy and avian skeletal structure, she had yet to find a way to make her dream a reality.

Rolling away from the window with a pillow clutched between her snow-white wings, Rei blocked such thoughts from her tired mind. There was no point in torturing herself with dreams that would never come true, she thought to herself. For now it was time for bed, and within an hour or so of tossing and turning to find a good position to sleep comfortably she slipped off into the world of dreams, likely the only place she would ever truly be able to fly.


	2. Shyness as a form of narcissism

Gendou Ikari sat at his desk in the pitch black room, his loyal assistant at his side, with his hands clasped together in his trade mark style. In front of him float a series of black screen numbered one through eight that represent the various members of the United Nations sub-committee known only as SEELE. For now the screens showed only the words "Sound Only,"representative of the fact that those pulling NERV's strings from behind the scenes were busy elsewhere.

"Commander Ikari, do you really think it wise to report to SEELE when we barely have anything new to go on since we last talked to them?" Fuyutsuki asked in a whisper as if to avoid the ever-present eyes and ears of their distant masters.

"There will be no problem," Gendou coolly replied. "The more in control those old fools believe themselves to be, the easier things will be on our end."

Gendou smiled from behind his trademark pose, a sure sign that his speaking in such absolutes was backed by a good measure of planning, spying, and other back-room dealings.

As the older man's smile disappeared whence it came, the monitors hanging all around him whirred to life with a loud hissing noise. As the sound died down, the image of eight old men sitting at a large table sprang into existences in the dark room. Varying in nationality and age, they were all part of SEELE, a U.N. council created to oversee NERV's efforts to save humankind from the horror of the Angels.

"Greetings. I assume you've all been well?" Gendou asked in his usual tone.

"Cut the small talk, Ikari. We want a full report of what you and the rest of NERV have been up to, and we'd like you to make it quick," one member of the council snapped in a nasal and slightly angry voice.

"I would like to assure you that all is going according to the scenario portrayed in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Gendou calmly retorted. "The Eva are working properly, and we have two additional pilots slated to arrive within the month. Everything is as it should be."

Gendou was supremely confident. He had long ago become used to sparring with the members of the SEELE council for the sake of NERV and its budget. The better he could convince them that everything was as it should be, the easier it was for him and the rest of NERV to act without the restraint and oversight of people who knew precious little of their internal affairs.

"Very good, Ikari. But the matter of the 'Children of Adam' still stands. Have you learned anything concerning these anomalies? " an aged German man in his mid 60s spoke from the head of the long table.

"We know roughly as much about them as you do, Chairmen Keel – that of course being that these mutations have only began appearing following the Second Impact, and the fact that the infection affects roughly a third of all births. Our research department has suggested to me that the best way to handle all this is to study the Angels themselves, and, with the retrieval of the body of the Fourth Angel, we should have no problem carrying out such research in the future."

In reality there was far more known about the so-called "Children of Adam" then the Commander of NERV let on. There was simply no reason to reveal all of it to the council just yet. Gendou was never one to outright lie to others; rather, he tended to rely on the sin of omission to achieve his goals. What a person didn't know rarely hurt them after all.

"I expect a full report on all related research once it has been completed. If that is all you have to report, Ikari, I feel the time has come to end our little chat," the old visored chairman spoke gruffly.

"Of course, I look forward to our next meeting, Chairman."

The monitors soon flickered out, returning to displaying a black screen – the meeting was over, and the Commander of NERV had once more triumphed over his would-be masters, ever so small a victory it may have been.

"That should keep the Chairman busy for awhile," Gendou spoke plainly.

"I imagine it will. But the problem remains that the we still know next to nothing about those poor children even with all the data we've gathered from studying the First Child," Fuyutsuki said in a whisper.

"There is no need to worry; we will soon have all the information we could possibly want on the subject," Gendou replied, once more smiling his trademark self-assured smile.

* * *

Shinji Ikari had come to Tokyo-3 upon his father's request to pilot Evangelion Unit-01 and help to stave off the assault of the monstrous creatures known as Angels. Since then, he had fought two of the strange beasts, and had, through all the anguish and mental pain, found something of a role for himself within the hierarchy of NERV.

His position outside the organization, however, was less then stellar. With few friends and a "social life" that revolved mostly around talking to Misato after school as she drank herself into a stupor every night, Shinji was a sad soul bound by his past and imprisoned in a cage of his own issues. Every night he would swear that his problems were caused by people other then himself, but, sometimes, even the saddest of people are happy for a short while.

It was four PM, and school had just let out as dozens of middle-school students spilled into the street, discussing matters of tests, romance, and the strange monsters that had been targeting the city as of late. As members of the throng walked side-by-side with their friends, Shinji walked home alone, a sullen look plastered across a face and his ever present tape player plugged firmly into his ears, drowning out the outside world with an endless repetition of a few songs set on an eternal loop.

As he walked down the street towards home, his gaze fixed firmly on the pavement below, a flutter of pure white feather wafted around him from on high. Normally he would have ignored such a sight and attribute it to a seagull or some similar bird flying over head, but Tokyo-3's artificial environs rarely played host to such animals – few places on Earth did after the Second Impact – and the size of the feathers were far to large to belong to any normal bird.

It was enough for the youth to ignore his instinct to simply go home, but Shinji instead craned his head skyward in the direction from which the snow-white feathers rained. They seemed to be falling from the school's rooftop where a distant figure stood on the roof's edge, her gaze fixed firmly on the cloudy skies above.

"Ayanami...?" Shinji murmured to himself.

He didn't know all that much about the mysterious pilot of Eva Unit-00, but she always seemed oddly familiar, like someone he had known years ago but whose name he had forgotten.

Heading back to school and making his way up the winding stairs that led to the roof, Shinji soon found himself in Rei's stoic company. Now closer, he could see that she that her white wings were hoisted towards the sky as if something up there lay just outside her reach.

It was from those wings that several feathers fell from her impressive wingspan and rode the winds to the ground below. Though she seemed unaffected by the loss of the feathers, their flight through the air seemed to bring a sullen expression to the young bird-girl's pale face.

Unable to stand to see an acquaintance look so sad, Shinji slowly approached Rei's position. So engrossed by her own issues, the winged pilot didn't notice Shinji at all until he stood directly behind her.

"Ikari-kun... Why are you here?" she asked without turning around.

"I saw you standing up here by yourself, so I thought I'd come and see if everything was OK..." Shinji spoke nervously. He had never been good at speaking with other people, but his words rang with genuine concern about Rei's well-being.

"I'm fine... I just like being up here where I'm close to the sky." Rei finally turned around and spoke in her usual stoic fashion.

"Close to the sky...?" Shinji questioned, strangely confused by Rei's words.

"Yes, it makes me feel better. And, someday... Someday, I wish to fly."

Shinji stood in confused silence for a long moment. When he had lived with his teacher, he had little exposure to those like Rei who had been since birth afflicted with the strange sickness borne of the Second Impact. But upon coming to Tokyo-3, he had found himself surrounded by them. It was a strange feeling that had made him feel even more alone then usual. But Rei was a different matter; Rei was his friend, more or less, and she had nearly gotten herself killed several times over in his defense. No matter how strange she looked or acted, he just couldn't abandon her when she looked so very sad.

"Can't you just take an airplane or something?" Shinji asked perplexedly.

"No. I wish to fly under my own power," Rei replied. "I was given these wings, but not the power to use them. It makes me... sad."

Rei appeared as if she wished to cry, but in the end she seemed to have decided against such a blatant show of emotion.

"I mean, maybe with some practice you'll be able to someday," Shinji spoke in an attempt at reassurance.

"I've tried for a very long time. I don't think it is possible for a human to fly."

"Maybe you just need a little help..." Shinji thought for a moment. "I know! I could help you. You're always helping me... so think of it as me paying you pack for all the stuff you've done for me."

Shinji quickly realized the hypocrisy of his offer of help. Aside from piloting the Eva, he had never really done anything for anyone else in his entire life. But he couldn't just leave Rei alone...

"Possibly. I will speak to you again the next time I attempt flight."

"All right! Um...I'll see you tomorrow then?" Shinji returned to his usual awkward self in short order.

Rei nodded and hopped down from her rooftop ledge, like one may expect a small bird to leave its perch.

"I will see you tomorrow, Ikari-kun."

Rei walked past Shinji without another word, leaving her fellow pilot to wonder what exactly he had just agreed to do .


	3. Love that does not expect to be returned

In the recent past, three Angels had laid siege to Tokyo-3 and, in turn, had all been repelled by the efforts of NERV and the mysterious weapons known only as Evangelion. However, after the near breach of NERV HQ during the last attack, the unsettling knowledge that even the combined force of Units 00 and 01 may not be enough to secure mankind's fate in the near future.

With that in mind, a message was sent to NERV's German branch requesting that Evangelion Unit-02 and its pilot be transported to Japan to bolster humanity's first line of defense against the Angels, and against the possibility of the tragedy of the Second Impact repeating itself all over again. It would be several days before both Eva and pilot arrived in the far east, leaving the rest of NERV's staff plenty of time to prepare for their arrival.

"What's all that paperwork, Misato? Are you working from home tonight?" Shinji asked as he stirred a boiling pot of soup, the night's meal for both himself and Misato, who, despite her superior age, was something of a lousy cook.

Misato sat at the low dining room table, a thick packet of paper in one hand and a cold beer in the other. The massive pile of documents detailed in depth the background, history, and statistical information related to the Second Child, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 and the newest recruit of NERV's Japanese branch. Misato had been staring at the document for at least an hour now and strained both her eyes and her brain trying to make sense of it. Though everything was certainly seemed to be in order, there was something about the Second Child that just seemed off to NERV's Director of Operations.

"Nah, I'm just going over all this stupid information about our new recruit," Misato replied, her fatigue showing in her voice. "It looks like she's an incredibly capable pilot, but I just can't shake the feeling that something strange is going on here. She's just _too _perfect, you know?"

Misato took a deep drink of her generic convenience store beer and finished the entire can in one prolonged chug. With all the strange things going on at NERV, sometimes the best way to deal with it all was just to get drunk as humanly possible.

"That's not very nice, Misato," admonished Shinji.

"Well then you come over here and look at this, Shinji. Then you'll see what I'm talking about."

Abandoning his his station at the kitchen's stove for a moment, Shinji walked to Misato's side and snatched the file from her waiting hand. Pouring over it for nearly three minutes, the annoyed look that manifest on his young face seemed to show Misato all she needed to know.

"Still don't believe me, huh?" Misato pouted.

"From what I can tell, she just seems really talented, but there is something I don't get..." Shinji held the document aloft for a moment, pouring over its front page for another half a minute to confirm his suspicion. "What the heck is a 'Mutation Type?'"

Misato sighed. She had poured over the twenty page document for three hours but had failed to notice something so simple that sat on the first page directly under the statistical information concerning the Second Child's weight, height, and age.

"I knew I missed something... But from what Ritsuko told me, the whole Mutation Type thing is a grouping system NERV came up with to catalog the various changes that affected children like Rei after the second impact."

"And what's Ayanami's type?

"I'm don't really remember the specifics , but Ritsuko once told me that Rei's type was 'Group: Avian, Sub-Group: Harpy' that's really all I know about her to. The rest of her file was censored to hell and back. In fact, I don't think anybody at NERV knows anything about her."

Misato sighed again. Despite her senior status as an agent of NERV, there was so much about the organization that Misato didn't know... and that, on some level, she may not have wanted to know.

"That makes sense, she does have wings like a bird." Shinji thought aloud. "But what about, uh..." Shinji consulted the thick file again. "Asuka? It says she's a 'Group: Material, Sub-Group: Ooze.' How can a person be an Ooze?"

Shinji grimaced. Even the sound of the word "ooze" was gross and brought to mind images of sloshing sludge and slime of the type found primarily in sewers, back alleys, and various other unsavory places.

"I really don't know. But you should probably stop thinking about it before your ruin your appetite." Misato grinned at Shinji's disgusted expression.

"Fine! I guess I'll just wait and find out when she gets here in a few days."

In a huff, Shinji returned to the boiling soup pot and attempted to finish the night's meal without imagining NERV's newest pilot as a horrible monster akin to those found in found in American horror movies of the 1950's.

_Somewhere on the open sea, two days' journey from the coast of Japan._

The transport of an Evangelion unit was a pain for all involved. Too big to move by air, it fell upon the navies of the countries allied with NERV in order to move the gigantic mecha, and all its weaponry, armor, and other attachments, across the open ocean at a snail's pace. And did they ever hate it – when mankind still waged war against itself, such ships had been the pride of their nation's navy and served to protect the open seas of their home nation with their impressive artillery. But now? They had been reduced to carrying Gendou Ikari's oversized toys to fight monsters that would not have looked out-of-place in a cartoon.

Today's colorful cargo consisted of Evangelion Unit-02, its pilot...and its backup pilot.

"Kajiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

A spry young girl, with almost translucent red skin, glassy blue eyes, and dressed in a crimson-colored plugsuit, wrapped her arms around the scruffy-looking man sitting in front of her. The man in turn seemed completely unfazed by the young maiden's advances.

"What is it, Asuka?" the man asked, annoyed.

"You should come and play with me!" the girl known as Asuka exclaimed.

Asuka tightened the embrace connecting her and Kaji, interlocking her hands to form a continuous loop around her overseer's body.

"How many times do I need to tell you this, I'm not going to 'play' with you, Asuka."

"But why?"

"One, you're too young. And two, you're made of slime and look like a dessert you might bring to a family get-together. Neither of those facts are terribly sexy."

Kaji laughed. He had been striking down Asuka's advances for as long as he had been designated her caretaker, and he didn't plan to stop anytime soon. The best he could do, he often thought, was push her constant need for attention onto someone else. But that would have to wait, given there wasn't anyone to push her affections onto aside from the Eva's backup pilot...

"That's mean, Kaji. You know I'm more mature then most girls my age and as long as I'm wearing my plugsuit I'm able to stay completely solid for as long as I want!"

"My point stands. Why don't you go play with Mari for awhile before bed? I'm sure she's been lonely lately since you've been spending all your time trying to seduce me."

Kaji stood, breaking Asuka's embrace in the process and began to walk off to converse with the ship's captain about when they would finally arrive in Japan, and when he would finally be free, more or less, of Asuka's constant attention.

Asuka, sad and annoyed, similarly slunk off. Her dejection normally would have caused her body to melt into a puddle and force her to wait around until her mood improved enough to coagulate into her humanoid form once more. Her plugsuit, jokingly called a "Gelatin Mold" by NERV's German staff, helped her to resist such involuntary changes, but the possibility still remained.

Asuka paced across the ship's deck, her gaze fixed on the ground below, as she made her way to the elevator leading to the the room she shared with her fellow Eva pilot.

"Stupid Kaji. He doesn't even know how good he has it with me. I mean I'm pretty much the best pilot around, AND I graduated from college when I was thirteen! Who else can say that?!" Asuka fumbled with the number pad that stood between her and a night of sitting alone and sulking. "No one, that's who!"

Upon entering the correct code, the electronic pad lit up for a moment before signaling that the door had been unlocked with a loud clinking noise.

"I'm home," Asuka announced in a sullen voice to no one in particular.

"Welcome home, Princess~" came the sultry reply.

From across the room Asuka spied a bespectacled young girl with brown hair gazing playfully back at her atop the room's bed. Like Asuka, she was dressed in a plugsuit, though hers was bright pink in color and modified specificity to accommodate it's wearer's massive, snake-like tail.

"Four-Eyes." Asuka stated crossly. "What are you doing here?"

"What else am I supposed to do around here?" the bespectacled girl slyly stated. "You spend half the day hitting on that old man of yours, and the rest sulking when he rejects you again."

Asuka was visibly angry, her jelly-like form smoldering with each lash of her fellow pilot's barbed words.

"I don't know, but you very well know that I don't like it when you hang around here all day waiting for me to come back. It's creepy!" Asuka retorted, getting increasingly upset.

"How is it any creepier then your hitting on a middle-aged man, Princess?" her companion replied, her teasing nature apparent in her voice.

Asuka opened her mouth to argue her friend's point... but couldn't. Mari was right, and now Asuka just looked like a fool.

"Fine! You win, Four-Eyes. Do whatever you want," Asuka sighed, admitting defeat.

"Get over here." Mari beckoned for Asuka with a motion of her right hand, a flick of her tail, and another sly smile.

"Why should I?" Asuka huffed.

"Because. You know you always feel better after we sit down and talk for awhile."

Asuka did ever hate it when Mari was right. But she couldn't argue; she did always feel a bit better after venting her problems with a friend for awhile.

"You coming or not, Princess?" Mari playfully asked, her tail swinging back and forth across the edge of the bed she was laying on.

"I'm coming, I'm coming..."

Even if it would be good for her in the long run, Asuka hated to admit loss at anything, even if it was something as simply as admitting she was wrong to a close friend.

Asuka sat beside Mari, her eyes closed and as much of a blush as her strange body could produce radiating upon her beet red cheeks.

"Okay, good~ Now take off the plugsuit," Mari hissed quietly into Asuka's ear.

Asuka was taken aback. "WHAT?!"

"Take it off. As long as you're wearing that thing, you're never going to be able to relax."

Without her plugsuit, Asuka's body was something of a malleable mess that took all of her mental fortitude to retain a humanoid shape. Any extreme bouts of emotion, primarily negative ones, could reduce her to a quivering puddle of a slime girl.

"Do you enjoy teasing me like this?"

"Of course," Mari smiled. "But that doesn't change the fact that I still think you'll feel a lot better if you take that dumb suit off."

"If it'll shut you up... fine."

Asuka made haste to another room with her sleeping clothes held close to her chest. Far away from prying eyes, Asuka stripped off the vacuum-sealed plugsuit, exposing her gelatinous body to the outside world for the first time in days.

"Stupid Mari, she knows that I look awful when I'm not wearing my plugsuit." Asuka slipped on a pair of shorts and a yellow tanktop before collecting the plugsuit and returning to Mari's side.

"Happy now?" Asuka questioned as she sat down on the bed again.

"Very," Mari replied. "But more importantly, do YOU feel better, Princess?"

For a long moment Asuka just sat and grumbled to herself, her slimy body shifting about to the beat of her sighs of dejection.

"Is that a yes I hear~?"

"Yes..."

"I can't hear youuuuuu."

"YES, I FEEL BETTER!"

"Good girl~"

Mari, with a smile on her face, hugged Asuka close to her chest as she often did. Though Asuka was slimy, and bit gross to the touch, it didn't matter to Mari as long as Asuka was happy.

"Now tell me all about everything that's on your mind" Mari spoke gently as she stroke the part of Asuka's head that passed as her hair.

"Well...


	4. We passed through the cycles strange

After the defeat of the Fifth Angel, and Asuka and Mari's arrival at NERV HQ, the manpower of NERV's Japanese branch had reached its greatest levels since the war against the Angels began some months ago, leaving more time for those within the organization's hierarchy to pursue day-to-day affairs in the safety of the knowledge that the mysterious mechanical giants known as Evangelion stood at ready to protect them at a moment's notice.

"All right girls, if you'll just line up, I'll take a blood sample from each of you and we can all be on our way."

Ritsuko Akagi, the head of NERV's research and development division, sat with clipboard and pen in hand as she instructed NERV's contingent of female pilots as to just why they were visiting her office.

"But why? Shouldn't you have all this junk on record by now?" Asuka whined from the front of the three-deep line that began mere feet from Ritsuko's seated position.

"Your physiology can change from day to day, Asuka, so it is important to keep our data on all of you current so as to make sure your ability to pilot the Evas is not hindered in any way. In short, it's for your own good." Ritsuko smiled slyly.

"Then why didn't stupid Shinji have to come to? If your going to be wasting our time, then he should be here to."

Ritsuko sighed. Of all the children, she disliked working with Asuka the most. Abrasive and cocky, trying to reason with her was like rubbing your face against sandpaper.

"I was going to keep this secret," Ritsuko replied, "but since you insisted, Shinji isn't present today because the tests I will be running are all related to you girls' mutations."

Her complaints answered, Asuka quickly clammed up, leaving Mari to giggle into her palm at the sight of her best friend's apparent defeat.

"She sure told you, didn't she, Princess?" Mari snickered.

Asuka's liquid body bubbled and boiled like the anger radiating from the core of her being. She had been thoroughly defeated, but further complaints would be met with Ritsuko's usually dry mix of sarcasm and professionalism.

"Shut up, Four-Eyes. I really don't need this from you right now," Asuka huffed as she crossed her arms across her chest. "Let's just get this over with so we can all go home."

"Good to hear, Asuka." Ritsuko readied a small syringe as she rose from her seat and took Asuka's bare arm in her free hand. "This will only sting for a moment."

Of course, in reality, Ritsuko had no idea if it would hurt Asuka's gelatinous body or if she even had blood to begin with. But for the sake of routine, she pierced Asuka's jelly-like arm and pushed the needle's plunger down with her thumb.

"Ow!" Asuka squeaked as the needle probed deep into her arm.

What the apparatus drew from Asuka's body was not blood, but rather the gelatinous substance that made up most of her body. Unlike Mari and Rei, whose bodies still obeyed the general rules that governed human physiology, Asuka's form seemed to be governed by a set of laws still unknown to modern science. Lacking a skeleton, nerve tissue, or even internal organs, it was unclear how any facet of her body even functioned – a fact that annoyed Ritsuko and the rest of NERV's scientific staff to no end.

"That's all I need for now. You're free to go, Asuka."

Asuka left in a hurry, nursing the point that the syringe had penetrated the surface of her arm as she went.

"See you later, Princess~" Mari waved as Asuka left. Though sarcastic and mean at times, she really did care about Asuka. Perhaps more so then anyone else at NERV.

"All right, Mari. You're next." Ritsuko motioned for the snake-like back-up pilot of Evangelion 02 to come forward and received the same treatment her best friend had just experienced.

"How are you adjusting to things here in Japan?" Ritsuko asked as she drew blood from Mari's right arm.

"Everything's fine," Mari responded calmly. "I mean, it took awhile to get used to eating Japanese food everyday, and living with Asuka can be annoying at times, but it's been fun! I just love training everyday, and I really hope I'll have an Eva of my own someday."

Ritsuko gave Mari a strange look. The other pilots all had their own reasons for piloting the Eva, but Mari was an exception. She seemed to simply enjoy the thrill of battle and the feeling of controlling one of the most powerful weapons ever built by human hands. Even among the strange lot that was NERV's stable of pilots, Mari was an odd one to be sure.

"It's good to hear you're doing well. That'll be all for now."

"See you later, Doc! I should go talk to Asuka before she spends the rest of the day sulking because of that verbal butt-kicking you gave her earlier."

It was always strange to see Mari leave a room – the way her tail swayed from side to side in time with her hips was an image that just a decade ago would have been consigned to comic books and cartoons, but to the current generation it was simply a fact of life. Ritsuko had thought many times over just what about it that so bothered her about the way Mari moved, but in the end came to a simple conclusion: human beings shouldn't slither.

"You're up next, Ayanami."

Without incident Ritsuko drew Rei's blood. The ever stoic bird-girl never argued or fought anything related to her role as the First Child. It was almost odd how compliant she was for a fourteen-year-old girl. No one seemed to know anything about her and all of her files had been censored as if they were a matter of national security. Ritsuko sometimes wondered just what Gendou was trying to hide from the rest of NERV, but she had learned a long time ago it was not a good idea to pry into anything that man had taken time to hide.

"So, do you have any plans for this afternoon?" Ritsuko attempted to make small talk with Rei.

"I'll be spending the afternoon with Ikari. He promised to help me find a way to fly," Rei replied stoically.

"Really, the commander promised you that?" Ritsuko asked with a faint smile.

"No...it was Shinji," responded the bird-girl.

"Oh ho," Ritsuko continued, "are you two friends now?"

"I'm not sure." Rei turned her eyes downwards, her emotions clouded.

"Well, just keep at it and I'm sure things will work out." Ritsuko grinned at Rei in an attempt to cheer her up.

Ritsuko could count the number of friends she had on one hand, and half of those were cats, but it was still nice to see someone as reclusive as Rei reaching out to others.

"Do you need anything else from me?" Rei asked on her way out.

"No, that will be all for today, Ayanami. You know, you're lucky – while you go get to play, I'll be stuck here all night analyzing you kids' blood samples." Ritsuko winced; she had pulled far to many all-nighters as of late.

"Do you not enjoy your job?"

"It's not that, I just miss the days when I could spend my afternoons doing whatever I wanted. Make sure you don't waste your youth, Ayanami."

"I will keep that in mind. But I have to get going, Ikari is waiting for me."

"Ok, OK. I'll see you later, Ayanami."

"Goodbye, Doctor."

* * *

Tucking several vials of blood tightly against her chest, Ritsuko went about storing the day's samples with a frown on her face. Just where had the time gone? It seemed just like yesterday that she was in college and messing around with Misato on a daily basis, at least before the latter met Kaji and devoted most of her time to their "extracurricular activities," anyway.

"Oh well...things are fine as they are. And if I have time for self-indulgent reflection, I have the time to analyze all these blood samples. Time to get to work!"

As night fell upon Tokyo-3, most of NERV's staff flooded into the city's streets and made their way home via car and train. Those who remained at the base were among the unlucky whose projects were of the utmost importance as classified by the commander himself.

These projects were usually those related to the Evangelion themselves and the children who had been called upon to pilot them. Keeping both the gigantic mecha and their masters in tip-top condition was among NERV's top priorities, as either of them falling into disrepair could mean not only the end of Tokyo-3 but of all mankind as well if the long-feared coming of the Third Impact finally came about. And just as often as such projects called for NERV personnel to work late, it was equally as often that Ritsuko Akagi was attached to said projects.

The workhorse of NERV's scientific division, she had overseen more operations in the last half a decade then she could even remember. It was a tireless – and often thankless – job, one that had more or less ruined her social life and reduced her friend count to Misato, Kaji, and a handful of cats. But in the end, she was working towards saving the world, and at the end of the day, that was enough to keep her coming back day after day to work within the bowels of NERV HQ.

This night's project was a simple one, analyze the girls' blood, and Asuka's slime sample, and update their profiles to match. Asuka and Mari hadn't been tested since they arrived from Germany, and Rei's records may as well have been a blank sheet of paper with her name on it – all the more reason to fill in those blanks with the information gleaned from the day's tests.

Working within one of NERV's state-of-the-art laboratories, Ritsuko shuffled between machines for several hours, pouring the blood into various vials, pressing various buttons, and making sure none of the precious material became contaminated with foreign matter. A slow and tedious process to be sure, but she spent much of her time reading a trashy romance novel as the various machines around her whirred and buzzed, analyzing as they analyzed the information stored within the genetic material floating within each child's vial of blood.

Her mind split between the relationship of her novel's heroine to a older man in a position of power and the machines that surrounded the novel's reader, Ritsuko wondered what exactly the results of all these tests would return.

"The poor kids," she thought aloud as she turned another page of her novel. "They're never going to live a normal life."

It was true, after all – aside from Shinji, every child working within NERV's hierarchy had spent most of their life training to pilot the Evas. While their classmates' biggest concerns were school and their budding social lives, these poor children had been tasked with fighting gigantic alien monsters day in and day out. It was a sad state of affairs no matter how one looked at the situation.

Though she didn't care about the children as much as her friend Misato, who had gone as far as to take Shinji into her home and offer Asuka the same before she agreed to share an apartment with Mari, did, even Ritsuko couldn't help but feel bad for Shinji and the others.

A few moments later, the process Ritsuko had put into motion several hours ago finally came to an end, spitting the children's genetic data out on both screen and paper. Dog-earring her place in her novel, Ritsuko put aside the paperback and took a deep breath as she rose from her seat with an intent to dive into the many mysteries locked within the Eva pilots' genetic codes.

"Nothing odd so far," Ritsuko said as took a sip of coffee from her favorite mug. "This is pretty much all par for course for kids born after the Second Impact."

All children born with mutations thought to be caused by the Second Impact possessed a strand of DNA, encompassing around one percent of their total genetic structure, unique to them and found nowhere else within the human genome. In essence, children with extreme mutations, such as these scouted to become Eva pilots, could be classified as a unique subspecies of humanity with a population of one each.

Rei and Asuka's test results all resembled the expected model, 99 % in common with a normal human and one percent that had made them into the unique beings they were today. Mari's, on the other hand, was...different, and the causes of some alarm for even a seasoned scientist such as Ritsuko..

"This can't be right! No human should have a genetic code like that. It's just not possible!" Ritsuko yelled in disbelief as she dropped her coffee mug from her trembling hand. Much of Mari's genetic code was completely unreadable, marked on her chart as smudged blocks that appeared as if black paint had been carelessly dropped upon them by an oblivious child.

As the mug crashed to the cold floor below, splintering into several dozen pieces in the process, Ritsuko hurriedly tapped away at the lab's computer, cross referencing Mari's test results with every similar record NERV had on file from years of examining the so-called "Children of Adam."

Yet her search was for naught, as not one of these thousand files was perfect. Several, taken from children with similarly reptilian body structures, yielded some promise, but all proved, in the end, to be nothing but a dead end in the face of Mari's odd genetics.

"Damn it! What the heck is going on here? This shouldn't even be possible..." Ritsuko beat both her hands upon the keyboard as one final idea came to mind. One that filled her with dread at the possibility that they may provide a perfect match.

"Calm yourself, Ritsuko. This isn't a big deal, we'll just compare the two and get this all over with."

Ritsuko took a deep breath as she called up the record in question, one of an alien creature that had only recently acquired by NERV.

Comparing the two side by side, Ritsuko could chuckle to herself at the oddity of it all.

"Well isn't this interesting..." She mused to herself.


	5. The Diary of Misato Katsuragi

The Diary of Misato Katsuragi

XX | XX | 2015

My father made sure I would survive the Second Impact by sealing me in a metal capsule while the Antarctic ice melted around me. The whole mess had started with a science expedition gone horribly wrong, and it ended with an event that devastated the globe and, in the end, killed nearly fifty percent of humankind between the Impact itself and the drought, famine, and general blight that followed.

After being recovered from the site of the blast, I was taken in by an organization that would eventually become NERV. For a long time I couldn't even speak; the scars from the Impact were just to great. But slowly, I recovered, and eventually I joined with NERV to fight against the horrors that had appeared from seemingly nowhere following the Second Impact. That was likely the smallest change in the world compared to what happened to the children born after the Second Impact.

It started small, with children born looking slightly odd or out of the norm, things that could be chalked up to normal genetic problems. But within a year or so it became far worse, children were being born with horns, claws, and tails. Things that couldn't be explained by normal science. In the most extreme cases they would almost appear to be strange fusions of a human and some kind of animal, sort of like those creatures you hear about in legends and myths.

While I was holed up in NERV, those poor kids grew up in an increasingly hostile environment. At first people were just afraid of them, but, in time, many were abandoned by their parents, who saw them as a strange burden they simply could not deal with. Most of them ended up in the foster care system for years until the fear surrounding their strange appearance was at least partly explained by modern science. That is where we came in – NERV was likely the largest group doing research on the mutations at the time and actually took in several of the afflicted children, acting as their guardians in exchange for the consent to study them and their condition.

Among the first children studied as a part of the program was a blue-haired girl named Rei Ayanami. NERV's commander, a stern man named Gendou Ikari, introduced her to the staff personally as the daughter of a friend who would be away on business for sometime and thus couldn't take care of her. It took awhile for me to finally meet Rei, but it was quite the shock when I did. Of all the afflicted children I had seen come through NERV HQ under my watch, she possessed the most extreme mutations I had ever seen.

Where her arms should be instead lay two wings bearing snow-white feathers like those of a great bird of prey. For a while, I just stood and stared at her, while she stoically stood at the commander's side, greeting my surprise with a wall of indifference.

"This is Rei," the commander spoke, his eyes hidden behind his ever-present glasses. "Since our testing on her has concluded, we have moved her to your division."

"What are we going to do with a kid like her, sir?"

"She will be the pilot of the prototype Evangelion. She possess unique qualifications that make her especially adept for the role."

"Of course, Sir!" I spoke with a salute. I asked no further questions, as it was unlikely that the commander would answer them anyway. "And hello to you to, Rei. I'll be looking forward to working with you."

I offered her my hand, but the bird-girl remained silent and her eyes distant. I wondered for a moment what dwelt behind those big eyes of hers, but even now I still don't know how her mind works. Even for a child whose body is so alien, her mind seems to be doubly so.

Soon after Rei became the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, NERV released to the public that the mutations were caused by the radioactive fallout flung into the air by the supposed meteor impact that had caused the Second Impact. As the debris from the incident had lingered in the air all over the planet for over a year following the event, most people ate up this misinformation readily and quickly dropped the case entirely. The bulk of the fear and mystery surrounding the afflicted children soon subsided as well as NERV's propaganda spread to every corner of the globe. Some genuine good came of it, too, and most of the children who had been in NERV's care as research subjects were soon adopted or returned to their original parents within a year or so.

In the end, of the dozens of children that had once been under NERV's care, only Rei, now a full-fledged pilot with all the training the position required under her belt, remained. The base had grown quiet without the sounds of kids running about and getting into things they shouldn't, but in the end, it was a relief. I couldn't stand seeing them subjected to such a battery of tests, needles, and other scientific junk every day, and several times I had thought of bringing a few of them home. I know I'd be a terrible mother – I can barely take of myself sometimes – but a part of me just wanted to be there for all of them, like the big sister most of those children would never have.

In the end, I involved myself with Rei in ways that didn't conflict with her quiet lifestyle. We rarely spoke directly, but from time to time I'd leave her a small present to make her feel more at home. I never really knew what she did with it all, but she sometimes left a thank-you note attached to my office door... though I'm pretty sure Ritsuko had written all those to make me feel better about the whole mess.

It was hard working with Rei; she seemed to see me exclusively as her superior officer and followed orders down to the letter. In many ways she was perfect for the role of pilot and solider, almost scarily so, but it often seemed like everyday living was hard for her. Considering her isolation, caused by both her own avian appearance and her position within NERV, she seemed to have trouble simply living like a normal human being. It was a sad sight to see, but eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I would never be able to help her... not directly anyway. I swore in that moment that if another child was ever forced to play the commander's game again, I'd do everything in my power to make their life a little bit better. It was the least I could do to repay everything those around me had sacrificed so I could get where I am today.

It was a while later, after Rei was injured, her left wing broken and her entire body bruised during a test run of Eva 00 in which the mechanical giant went berserk and had to be sealed away in order to avoid further harm, that I received word that another child would soon be joining NERV as the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01.

His file listed his name as "Shinji Ikari", the commander's son and a timid boy of fourteen, and in a few days I would pick him up from the train station and introduce him to the wonderful world of NERV and the Evangelion.

* * *

XX | XX |2015

Shinji's arrival should have been a happy affair. With him in tow our manpower had nearly doubled and would allow for the deployment of two Evangelion units at once when Rei had finally recovered from the awful injures she had sustained during Unit-00's failed test run. But, sadly, the arrival of the Third Angel, a humanoid creature with a strange mask-like face and a body as big as a building, derailed all that, as Tokyo-3 was soon under attack from this new threat.

The UN attempted to stave off the creature with gunfire, tanks, and aircraft to no avail. In retrospect, I wonder why they even bothered to attack the Angel with their outdated toys; they never did any damage and in the end likely made things worse by wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer money on weapons that, to an Angel, amounted to striking the side of a barn with a stick.

Shinji and I were stuck in the creature's wake as we attempted to outrun its path of destruction in my beat-up car. Even as the Third Angel barreled down on us an aggravated assault, I tried to make small talk with Shinji, who seemed more interested in pouting then talking with me. What's worse, when we arrived safely at NERV HQ, Shinji got into a shouting match with his father over whether or not he would pilot the Eva. It seemed like there had been some seriously bad blood between those two, and because of that, the fate of Tokyo-3 now rested on the shoulders of a kid with serious daddy issues and problems dealing with authority.

The commander almost sent Ayanami, bandaged and broken as she was, to combat the angel in Shinji's place. But that seemed enough for Shinji to dismount from his high-horse and muster up the courage to take on the Angel was was currently rampaging through the city's streets like it owned the place.

Shinji had never piloted anything in his whole life, but somehow managed to synch with the Eva without any training at all. Despite the awkwardness of it all he managed to fight the Angel with all his might, at least until the creature grabbed Unit-01's head and repeatedly impaled the Eva's head with a pylon in its arm. I couldn't even begin to imagine the pain Shinji was feeling within the robot's cockpit, as the link between pilot and Eva often caused a pilot to feel phantom pain similar to that the Eva would experience if was a living creature. The constant battering must have made it feel as if he would have died, but he didn't... and then IT happened.

Berserker. The name given by the scientific team to when an Eva let loose all of its limiters and began to act on its own. Like a feral beast, Unit-01 launched a brutal assault upon the Angel, eventually pinning the beast down and pounding upon its chest in order to break the large jewel-like core embedded within. The Angel seemed bent on dying on its own terms, however, and self-destructed in a cross-shaped blaze, taking a block of the city with it.

An early call for evacuation had prevented the conflict from taking any lives, though many were hurt when the creature initially touched down in the city. Shinji would be hailed as NERV's hero, as what was likely going to be a very long war had begun. From now on the Angels would likely begin appear one after another until one of us – humanity or the Angels – was destroyed.

Shinji awoke in a hospital bed a few days later, feeling more then a bit banged up from all the pain he had sustained during the battle against the Third Angel. After seeing that poor kid fight for not only his life but for all of us, I made a decision. I would make good on that promise I had made to myself before Shinji had arrived.

Following Shinji's release from the hospital, the matter of where he would be staying came up. There was simply no way he would go off to live with his father, and the prospect of him living alone in isolation like Rei was something I couldn't stand. So, standing up for him as I had wanted to do for the many children who had been shuffled through NERV's care over the last few years, I insisted Shinji come and live in my apartment.

"We're going to have so much fun together, right Shinji?" I smiled.

"Whatever..." he mumbled.

I brought Shinji home that night after a convenience store run for beer and snacks. He seemed none too happy to be living with me, but I'm sure he'll warm up to the idea eventually.

* * *

XX | XX | 2015

Success! Shinji has slowly gotten used to living with me, even if he spends a good portion of his time moping in his room with his tape player cranked to max. And it's entirely true that he's tried to quit NERV a few times because he couldn't take the pressure... and he _does_ tend to become incredibly sarcastic and rude when confronted with difficult situations. But it was still nice to have him around; during those few times he ran off and declared he would never return, the apartment just felt really empty, and it was a huge drag to go back to eating convenience store lunch boxes after having Shinji cooking for me every other day.

At first he seemed so lonely in his new home; other then me and a few other people at NERV, he didn't seem like he had many friends or even casual acquaintances. Even in public he would spend most of his time with his headphones pressed firmly against his ears, blocking out all contact with the outside world. Recently he's been getting better, and seemed to make friends with two boys from his class who seemed to enjoy staring at me whenever they visit – and I've even seen him talking to Rei on occasion so it seems he's getting better slowly but surely.

On one occasion he even mentioned that Rei had asked him to help her in one of her seemingly endless series of experiments to try and fly, something which, with her mostly human constitution, she was unable to do. This surprised me simply because of Shinji's feelings upon first meeting Rei. For quite some time he had often stated how uncomfortable he felt around her and the other children in his class who were afflicted with Second Impact-related mutations. He never stated why they made him feel that way, but it's something we'll likely need to resolve in the future. We just can't have any dissonance in the ranks because of such a silly issue after all. But from what I understand about Rei's past, she'd been attempting to these experiments since the moment she joined NERV, and they seemed to be one of the driving motivations in her life. I'm not sure exactly what it means to her, but if Shinji can help her in some way, even if it's just moral support, I'm all for those two becoming close friends.

In the midst of all the drama at home, the Fourth Angel decided to make itself known, assaulting the city with its whip-like limbs and goofy looking eyes. The whole fight was something of a mess, as Shinji's friends decided to try and film the Eva's battle with the Angel, putting themselves in harm's way and forcing Shinji to save their intruding butts, but somehow we managed to come out on top, with the Angel's body and most of its core intact and ready to be researched by our crack team of scientists.

According to Ritsuko, there is hope within the scientific community that, due to the Angel's relationship with the Second Impact, the acquisition of it's body may hold information that will help us to understand the mutations plaguing the current generation – and we may even discover some way to prevent it from spreading in the future.

I really hope Ritsuko is right on this one. If there is anything we owe to these kids, it's to fix the problems our parents' generation left for them.

| XX |XX | 2015

Last night, NERV undertook it's biggest operation to date, a ploy to destroy the Fifth Angel, who resisted all traditional methods of attack and attempted to drill its way directly into NERV HQ. As most normal weapons failed to pierce the creature's massive AT Field and powerful counterattacks, it came down to procuring a prototype weapon from the JSDF, a massive positron rifle built to Eva specifications. As the power required to merely fire the weapon once was severely lacking, power was siphoned from all over Japan in order to power the massive weapon in what was known as Operation Yashima.

Shinji was chosen to actually fire the gun, while Rei provided defense in Unit-00. While the first shot failed to pierce the creature's AT field, the fact that Rei risked her own life by bravely throwing herself between Unit-01 and the Angel's beam attack ensured Shinji would have just enough time to fire a second shot and finally pierce the creature's core, destroying it in the process.

After the conflict was over, I heard secondhand from one of the crewmen that Shinji had personally rescued Rei from Unit-00's tattered entry plug by pulling the its door open, even despite it being hot enough to cause some awful burns to anyone dumb enough to touch it. I'm not sure what possessed him to risk his own safety to save the strange bird-girl he had been so scared of just a few weeks before, but I imagine it has something to do with all the time they've spending together during Rei's little experiments. Just call it a hunch I guess.

The real take away from all this, though, is how far we've come in becoming a proper fighting force. Rei had certainly shown that she was more then capable of holding her own on the battlefield, and Shinji was beginning to come into his own as a pilot as well. Unlike the battles against the Third and Fourth Angels, which had been hastily thrown together and largely reactionary, this was the first time we were able to put together a proper plan, execute it, and destroy the target with minimal casualties. More then ever, there seemed to be a general hope that humanity might survive the war against the Angels after all.

Oh! and I got a promotion, that was pretty cool to.

XX |XX | 2015

* * *

Word from on high is that we'll be getting a new Eva soon, and two new pilots to go with it. They're both coming from the German branch and seem to be top-notch as far as piloting skills are concerned. That's not really what I'm worried about, though; rather, their files marked both of them as girls affected by Second Impact related mutations.

I really hope they both get along with Shinji and Rei, or we might have a problem on our hands. For now, all I can do is wait and hope for the best.

* * *

Bonus Section: The Puppy and the Princess

[The following takes place shortly before the events of "In the Case of Ritsuko Akagi."]

It hadn't been long since the Second Evangelion Unit and its pilots had arrived off the coast of Japan. The pride of NERV's German branch, both were escorted by a small fleet of warships provided by the UN, though most thought it foolish to deploy so many ships merely to escort one of Gendou Ikari's oversized toys. Those connected directly to the project knew better, however; the Evangelion were mankind's best shot at overcoming the adversity it currently faced and forging a better tomorrow for every man, woman, and child alive today.

Soon, a group from NERV Japan would arrive via helicopter to greet the new recruits and welcome them to their new home. Consisting of Misato, Shinji, and two of his friends who insisted they come along, the advance party soon hovered just over the massive ship in which Unit 02 currently slept. Resembling more a toy then a war machine from the war, all aboard the craft were quite interested what the day ahead had in store for them.

"Thanks for bringin' us along, Shinji! A-And Miss Misato! I never thought I'd be able to get so close to all this awesome military hardware," Kensuke, Shinji's short-statured, bespectacled school mate, said cheerfully, one eye surveying the oceanic landscape through the lens of his ever-present handicam.

"It's nothing...really," Shinji mumbled.

"OK, now all of you, keep in line," Misato barked. "Don't touch anything. And follow my orders exactly. As long as you keep all that in mind, I'm sure we'll all have a lot of fun today!"

Misato did her best to channel the persona of a cheesy tour guide as she spoke. Though she seemed cheerful on the surface, she was actually quite nervous to meet the new pilots. One's file could only tell you so much about a person, and, despite having worked at NERV's German branch years ago, she knew next to nothing about these new girls aside from what she was fed through NERV's official channels. She had spent many a long night hoping they would be nice and pleasant girls who wouldn't stir up a lot of trouble, but deep down she very well knew that would be to much to ask for.

"OK, everyone, we're going to be touching down soon. Remember everything I've told you and remember to be on your best behavior – you're all representing NERV today, and it'll be on my head if any of you do something stupid and mess this up. UNDERSTOOD?" she snapped, with her gaze pointed firmly at Shinji's friends.

"YES MA'AM!" They both responded in unison.

"Good, then let's get to work."

The helicopter's whirring blades came to a slow standstill as it landed on the largest carrier's deck, unloading its cargo of three young boys and the NERV Director of Operations as it did.

Waiting for them was the ship's promised cargo, two pilots and their caretaker.

"Well hello there, Misato. Funny seeing you here." Kaji, dressed in the garb of a NERV employee, smirked at Misato.

Kaji was a man in his early thirties who had seen military action in most of the world's worst war zones. A spy by trade, he was the go-to guy if you needed to know something that somebody else didn't want you to know. But more importantly, at the moment anyway, he was also Misato Katsuragi's ex-boyfriend.

"Hello. Kaji..." Misato muttered in a haze of rage. "If you would kindly leave now, I would like to have a word with our new pilots."

"Hey, heeeey. No need for such a tone – it's been so long since we last saw each other," Kaji replied. "Why not grab a bite to eat and catch up on old times?"

"Unlike you," Misato muttered, "_I_ have a job to do at the moment, so please..."

"I get it. I get it. I'll see you guys in the bridge once your done with your little meet and greet."

Kaji walked off with a wave goodbye and another sly smile, summoning another bout of angry fuming from Misato and a round of confused looks from those under the age of 15.

"Oh Kaji... do you really have to leave now?" A young woman of no more then 14 spoke longingly, her red, gelatinous body shining in the midday sun.

"You've got kids your own age to play with today, Asuka. You don't need me around, trust me." Barely audible, Kaji's words were quickly carried away by the brisk sea breeze.

Their caretaker gone to greener pastures, the center of attention now lay firmly on the two pilots from Germany. Asuka, a girl whose slime-like body was held in shape by a specially modified plugsuit, was the loudest, while her partner, the snake-like Mari, seemed content to stay at Asuka's side and chime in only when the opportunity for a cheap joke at her friend's expense seemed within reach.

"Wow... Those two are mutants just like Ayanami aren't they?" Keisuke spoke in a whisper.

"I guess so, but you should shut your mouth before they hear you. Didn't you remember what Miss Misato told us?" Touji whispered back to his friend.

"_What_ did you say?" Asuka snapped.

"Nothing, ma'am!" both boys said once more in unison.

"Good, and who _are_ you losers anyway?" Asuka said as she eyeballed Shinji and the rest of the group. "Are you seriously telling me you three are the pilots from Japan?"

Shinji raised his hand nervously as if answering a question aloud in class.

"Um, actually... I'm the only pilot here. These two are Touji and Kesiuke, friends of mine from school."

Shinji's voice was unsteady and awkward; the sight of the two strange girls was enough to rattle his already worried mind. True, he was fine around Ayanami, but this was a different matter entirely.

"Well whatever, you still look like a bunch of losers to me," retorted Asuka. "Not that anyone will be needing your lousy 'talents' once my Unit-02 is up and running."

Asuka was among the best pilots any branch of NERV had at its disposal. An ace in every sense of the word, she had some right to be as cocky as she was, even if such an attitude had made her notoriously unpopular with every member of NERV who had to be in the same room as her for more then an hour or so.

"Come on, Princess. Don't be so harsh on the newbie, we've all gotta start somewhere."

A girl whose mutation had replaced her legs with the tail of a great serpent, Mari Illustrious Makinami, was Evangelion Unit-02's backup pilot and Asuka's best friend in the entire world. Born in England and shuttled off to Germany upon proving her talents as a pilot, she had quickly latched onto Asuka, matching her friend's hubris with a razor wit and tendency toward snark.

"Can it, Four-Eyes," snapped Asuka. "It's best I put little Shinji here in his place before he gets any big ideas in that silly little head of his."

Asuka's head hovered perpetually in the clouds, far above those she considered to be beneath her... which was most everyone, as far as she was concerned.

"You're going to have to excuse my friend here," Mari said as she slithered to Shinji's side. "She gets like this sometimes. Just humor her for a while and she'll eventually calm down."

Shinji merely nodded in response, not wishing to add fuel to Asuka's ego fueled tirade.

"Mari..." Asuka fumed.

"Time to go, Princess. Let's go meet Kaji, 'kay?"

"'kay..." Asuka mumbled dejectedly.

"Good girl."

Mari took Asuka's covered hand and led her towards the ship's bridge, where the latter's beloved caretaker awaited.

"I think we should get going too guys," Misato chimed. "Follow the new girls!"

Misato pointed towards the bridge, once more bearing the personality of a tour guide – a mask she wore primarily to cover her growing annoyance with a certain ex-boyfriend of hers.

* * *

The meeting aboard the bridge was short and to the point. Evangelion Unit-02, Asuka, and Mari, would be handed over to NERV's Japan branch with the intent that they be used in the ongoing effort to destroy the angels and prevent the tragedy of Second Impact from happening again.

The business end of the matter dealt with the children were set loose to do as they wished, within reason of course. While Touji and Keisuke opted to tour the ship, Shinji, Asuka, and Mari all went below deck to view the ships greatest treasure, the sleeping body of Evangelion 02.

"Well get a load of this, Shinji!" Asuka spoke triumphantly as workers removed the massive tarp that covered her beloved Eva.

Truly, the ruby-red Evangelion was quite the sight to behold. Unlike Units 00 and 01, a prototype and a test model respectively, 02 was a production model, outfitted with all of NERV's newest technology and enough weaponry to to sink a small battleship.

Asuka beamed a radiant smile in Shinji's direction, eagerly awaiting her fellow pilot's impassioned awe with bated breath.

"It really is impressive," Shinji sighed. "But I couldn't really tell you if it's any different from any of the other Evas."

Mari snickered in the background as Asuka's hope sank like a ship that had broadsided an iceberg.

"You hear that, Princess?!" Mari yelled. "The _puppy_ doesn't give a crap about your big fancy robot!"

Asuka had grown annoyed, her slimy skin boiling as it always did when she was angry.

"SEE IF I CARE, YOU BIG IDIOT!" Asuka shouted. "Just wait till you see it in action, THEN you'll be singing a different tune."

As if on cue, as Asuka ended her sentence, the ship rocked as if a large wave had hit its side. An alarm rang throughout the ship, while Misato's voice came over the intercom in a panic.

"ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL, AN ANGEL HAS BEEN SIGHTED. I REPEAT, AN ANGEL HAS BEEN SIGHTED."

Outside the ship, the Fifth Angel, a gigantic eel-like creature with the maw of a shark, crashed at a mighty speed through the fleet of ships, piercing their hulls with its massive cranial horn and leaving a trail of sunken ships and corpses in its wake... and soon it would be within striking distance of the ship Asuka and the rest currently resided upon.

"Well, looks like you're going to get your chance to show off, Princess," Mari quipped.

"Can you please be serious for once? This is kind of a big deal." Asuka dropped her bragging for a moment, realizing that she could put Shinji in his place later, when their lives weren't in mortal danger.

"I know. I know. But this means it time to launch the Eva, right?"

Mari's eyes became focused and narrow, like those of a serpent. Her voice, normally goofy and full of a light hearted energy, was suddenly deadly serious. She always became like this when talk of piloting an Eva was put before her. It was something she lived and trained everyday for.

"Is she like this a lot?" Shinji said in a whisper to Asuka.

"Only when there's talking about piloting an Eva. She's definitely hardcore when it comes to this kind of thing."

"Oh... It's a little scary," Shinji replied sheepishly

"It really is. But you can bring up that issue when there isn't a chance we're all going to die," Asuka mused. "Yo, Four-Eyes, we're shipping off. Get your butt up here or I'm leaving you behind," she yelled below to her snake-tailed friend, who arrived at Asuka's side in a matter of moments.

"Awww, you're coming with? " Mari whined.

"Of course," Asuka answered. "This isn't like the training runs back in Germany; this is real combat. If you go all battle-crazy out there, there is a good chance we're all going to die."

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiine. Let's just get going before that dumb Angel gets away from us."

Another wave slammed against the ship's hull, rocking the craft and causing the lights below-deck to flicker.

"I don't think that will be a problem. Now get in!"

Releasing the locks on the Eva's entry plug, Asuka shoved Mari in first, giving her time to orient her massive tail before Asuka herself could take her place as the massive machine's proper pilot.

"And you... Shinji, right? You go tell that Misato lady what's going on. We'll take care of the rest."

Shinji nodded. There was no point arguing with someone with a will as powerful as Asuka's, at least not at a time like this.

The entry plug inserted itself back into the core of Unit-02, causing the machine to whirr to life as the pilots within its cockpit went about the start up procedures and stood at ready to be launched into battle against the most powerful angel to date.

"I heard the whole story from Shinji. I'm giving you full clearance to fight this thing," Misato echoed through the Eva's radio. "Just keep in mind that Unit-02 hasn't been modified for underwater combat. This is going to be rough."

"Understood," Asuka said as she gripped the Eva's internal controls. "Ready for launch."

Clawing its way free of the last few cables that had kept it restrained, Unit-02 made way for the ship's deck, awkwardly using the it as an uneven platform from which begin its battle with the Angel.

Extracting its progressive knife from storage in its left shoulder pylon, Asuka braced the gianther Eva to counter the Angel's next attack, planning to gut the creature's stomach like one might an oversized tuna.

The Angel soon arrived, barreling down on the massive carrier with intent to crash through its hull and sink it as it had just as it had done to a good number of other ships within the UN's fleet.

Asuka steadied herself with all her might; no matter how great the pain that the impact from the massive beast's attack might cause her, she would stand her ground and live up to her title of Ace of the German branch.

"Just one good shot, that's all I need," Asuka said nervously, drops of sweat – or at least her equivalent – dripping down her pale reddish face.

"No worries, Princess. You can do this. I believe in you," Mari spoke from behind Asuka's seated position. Her massive tail wrapped around the pilot's seat to make room for the both of them within the cramped cockpit.

Asuka nodded. It was not something that needed to be stated that Mari believed in her. After all, they had been friends for years and had done nearly everything together since the day she arrived in Germany. But it was still reassuring to hear, nonetheless.

The Angel, merely a few hundred yards from the ship by now, seemed to change tactics upon sighting the Eva standing upon the ship's deck. Rather then skewering the ship, it seemed bent on taking out the Eva and with the human's only chance of destroying it.

Diving underwater for a moment, the shark-like Angel soon leaped out of the water and careened toward Eva-02 horn-first, poised to tear a massive hole in the giant's stomach.

Already braced, Asuka positioned the Eva's knife to tear into the creature's unarmored underbelly... and as its mighty leap brought it within mere feet of the Eva, she struck, piercing the oversized blade deep into the creature's hide and causing it to bleed all over the deck, flopping about like a fish out of water.

"Got it!" Asuka yelled. But her victory was short-lived, as the bleeding beast soon flopped its way back into the sea and out of reach of her next assault.

"Looks like we're going to have to go in after it, won't we, Princess?"

Asuka nodded. The Angel was clearly wounded, and not finishing it off now would only lead to more casualties in the long run.

"Misato! We're pursuing the target underwater."

"I thought it would come to this," Misato radioed in. "There is an umbilical cord on deck, plug in and try to finish this fight as soon as you can."

Taking hold of the portable equivalent to the Eva's electric power cord and connecting it to the Eva itself, Asuka waited for the Angel to breach the surface again, and for her chance to kill the beast once and for all.

"There we go," she muttered as the Angel's bony horn emerged from the water for a brief moment. "We're going in, Mari!"

Diving in head first, poised to strike, Asuka grabbed hold of the creature's mask-like face and attempted to swing herself around to its underbelly to strike at the wound she had opened in the last attack. Her effort seemed to be working as the wound was soon in complete view and ready for Asuka's attack... until the creature swept violently to the right, weakening Asuka's grip and causing her Eva's head to slam several times against the creature's side.

"AGHHHHHHHH!" she yelled through the phantom pain before her world went completely dark. Asuka had fallen unconscious from the force of the impact, leaving the fate of several hundred lives squarely in Mari's waiting hands.

"ASUKA!" Misato screamed via the Eva's radio. "What's happened to Asuka?!"

"She's just fine..." Mari said in an oddly calm manner. "She just hit her little head and went to sleep for a little bit~"

"Mari?"

"Just leave everything to me."

Mari cut the system's radio, in an effort to cover all traces of what she was about to do.

Moving Asuka from the pilot's seat, she quickly took her place, reactivating Unit-02 in the process.

"All right. LETS DO THIS!" Mari yelled, her body and mind consumed by the rage Asuka had specifically warned her against unleashing.

The LCL, the feeling of being within the cockpit, it all felt like home to the serpentine pilot. For reasons she could never quite understand, there was no place she'd rather be then within an Evangelion, and nothing she'd rather be doing then ripping apart the enemy. Such a tendency had made her a top-quality pilot, but also terrified those in charge of keeping her behavior in check.

"I haven't felt this good in a veeeeery long time, which is good for me – but it also means that you need to _die_, Mr. Angel."

Extending the Eva's AT Field to its maximum height, Mari snared the beast neck within the Eva's metaphysical barrier, keeping its body in place so that she could finish the job.

Within moments a second AT Field sprang from seemingly nowhere. Generated neither by the Angel nor by the Eva, its origin was a complete mystery to all but Mari herself.

Breathing heavily, her eyes filled with bestial rage and her teeth bared like those of a predator stalking her prey, Mari manipulated the second AT Field to encircle the creature's neck. Rather then keep it pinned in place, the AT Field continued to constrict until it began to draw blood. It was now quite clear what her plan had been all along.

"Now... YOU DIE!" she yelled as the AT Field snapped shut, cleanly separating the Angel's head from the rest of its body, which sunk to the ocean floor below with an unceremonious thud.

Huffing like a person who had just run a marathon, Mari restored the Eva's radio function just in time to answer a very panicky Misato.

"What the hell is going on down there?" came the frantic shouting. Is Asuka ok?! What happened to the Angel!?"

"First off, she's fine," Mari replied. "Second, it's dead – very, very dead."

"You killed it... how, exactly?" Misato asked, puzzled.

"I cut its head off and the core just came along for the ride!"

"Um...come on back then... Good...job?"

"Roger!"

Upon Unit-02's return to the ship, Asuka was transferred to her room to rest for a while, while the rest of the crew wondered how exactly Mari had managed to kill the Angel in the first place.

"I'm glad you're both back safely," Misato plainly stated. "But I just can't figure out how you managed to behead that Angel with just the progressive knife. It just shouldn't be possible.

"It wasn't easy, I can tell you that much, Boss Lady." Mari smirked

"Well, however you did it, you two did a great job out there today. The only matter left is where you two girls will be staying in Japan, if you'd like..."

"Whatever you're gonna say, I'm gonna have to decline, Boss Lady," Mari interjected. "Me and the Princess have lived together since I first met her, and I don't see any reason to change things now."

"If that's your choice, I will respect your wishes," Misato replied. "Until we arrive in Japan, you are officially dismissed – now go get some rest. You deserve it."

Mari slithered her way back to her room aboard the ship where Asuka lay unconscious. Hovering over her friend's unmoving frame, she sighed. She had pushed her body to the limits to kill that thing, and anymore would have likely killed _her_.

"But I can't die now," Mari said with a smile. "I mean, what would you do without me, Princess?"

* * *

First off, thank you to my lovely boyfreind for helping me come up with this AU in the first place and for editing every chapter of this fic just because he wanted to. Secondly, thank you all for reading and reviewing this weird little fic, I always appreciate it.

See you guys next chapter.


	6. To Whom it may Concern

X | X | 2015

From: Ritsuko Akagi (Rits )

To: NERV leadership and any and all personnel within the Scientific Division

RE: Notes concerning the Children and their morphology

Good evening. Attached to this email is a comprehensive overview of the findings of months of testing and research conduct regarding the so-called "Children of Adam," their biology, and related topics pertaining to their existence. As always, this information is to be treated as TOP SECRET and should not be spoken of in public under any circumstances. Failure to do so will result in immediate termination and expulsion from NERV HQ.

With that that out of the way, the following document is split into two sections, with the first pertaining to the children on a general level, including information on biological classification, theories as how the mutations came to be, and the connection between them, as well as the fallout surrounding the events of ten years ago.

The second contains information about the children currently acting as pilots within NERV's care, their specific mutations, and related technologies. This information is sorted in no particular order of importance but is best read in a chronological fashion.

That is all. Anyone with further questions on any related manner should email me directly or come by my office during regular business hours. I cannot promise I will be able to answer your questions, but will do my best as NERV's chief science officer to do so.

Section 1: On the origin and nature of Second Impact-related mutations.

Most of you are likely familiar with the theory spread to the public regarding Second Impact and the mysterious mutations found in children the world over afterward. For those new to Tokyo-3, the story is as follows: on September 13th, 2000, a meteor collided with the Antarctic continent. The result of all this was the melting of the polar icecaps and a disastrous shift in climate that flooded many coastal cities, caused famine and drought all over the planet, and, in the end, was directly responsible for the death of almost 50% of all human beings alive at the time.

Most of this was a coverup. No meteor struck the South Pole that day; rather, an experiment gone horribly wrong caused the massive explosion and most likely resulted in the mess we're in now. That aside, the public was told that the explosion caused radioactive fallout to spread through the planet. This was made the primary reason for the mutations in almost all NERV propaganda since then. In truth, the exact cause of the mutations aside from their connection to Second Impact are completely unknown.

However, my own research into the subject has yielded promising results on the matter. Genetic studies of the three children currently acting as NERV's Evangelion pilots has shown that they possess a unique genetic structure that, while almost completely identical to that of an normal human being, possesses a unique strand of genetic material that occurs only within their genome and nowhere else in nature. This seems to imply that the mutations, like most others, occurs on a genetic level, but rather then being the simple deletion or repetition of a gene, Second Impact-related mutations seem to modify a whole range of genes responsible for, among other things, the very shape of the human body.

All of this information is best regarded as tentative, however, as research into the mutations is still ongoing and subject to change at a moment's notice. Of particular import is the study currently being conducted upon the body of the Fourth Angel. While preliminary tests have shown a amazing level of genetic similarity between the Angels and the children, it would be unwise to leap to any conclusions without further research into the matter.

Section Two: Classification of Mutant Children

While officially all those born with Second Impact related mutations are considered to be "human" genetically, internally we have devised a system to classify them based on the nature and outward appearance of their mutation. This system is still fairly new and should be considered to be in the Beta stage of development until further notice.

The system breaks down a mutation into three categories, Type, Group, and Sub-group. Type refers to the general classification of a mutation and is in itself split into three categories: Animal, Plant, and Material. The first two groups refer to children whose bodies closely resemble those of beasts and various greenery while the third contains humans whose bodies are made up of something other then flesh and bone.

Compared to Type, which paint broad strokes in its categorization, the second level of classification, known as Group, furthers divides the nature of mutations into more specific catagories. Among these include reptile, bird, and mammal within the animal group and slime within the material family. Each of these groups is then split once more into Sub-groups which possess the most precise level of classification based on specific creatures the children resemble. A further example of this classification will be presented in chart form later in this document.

Left out of the system are mutations that could be mistaken for those caused by normal means, such as odd eye coloration. This is so simply because it is impossible to tell the difference in small mutations of natural origin and those caused by Second Impact related channels

Example Chart

Rei Ayanami

Animal → Bird → Raptor/Bird of Prey

Asuka Langley Soryu

Material → Slime → Red Slime*

*Asuka is the only known member of the material group as of the current date. As such her Sub-Group

designation is more a place holder then anything else.

Mari Illustrious Makinami

Animal → Reptile → Snake

Section Three: Final thoughts regarding the Children of Adam

Professor Fuyutsuki once said that the mutations that sprang up after Second Impact were a curse laid upon humanity for trifling within the realm of the gods, and that for our mistake mankind would be forced to live as it once did in the days of old, closer to the beasts of the earth then the angels of Heaven above. While I can see where the good professor was coming from, as a good majority of the mutated children certainly resemble common animals, their genetic structure is easily closer to that of the Angels then their fellow human beings.

What we are witnessing today is a unprecedented leap in evolution of the kind not seen since our ancestors left their caves and became the intelligent beings we today know as humans. While that change took millions of years and the extinction of several older hominid species, the current evolutionary boom has taken a mere decade to give birth to dozens of separate human sub-species, each with their own genetic code and body structure. In my own mind, I believe what we are seeing here is not a regression to primordial forms of life, but rather the next stage of human evolution playing itself out in fast-forward right before our very eyes.

In the current climate, where human beings have been spared the hand of natural selection via the wonders of modern science, these children will not have to compete with one another for survival, meaning each subspecies will be given a chance to someday reproduce and continue its genetic legacy free of predation and competition. Within a few decades there may be thousands upon thousands of each race, marking the first time in since the extinction of Neanderthal man that the human race will live side-by-side with another species of equal intelligence and stature.

It is rather ironic that the worldwide destruction wrought by Second Impact has brought about the biggest boom of life since before the dawn of man. What that means for the current generation, I cannot say; for now, all we can do is support these children in any way we can, for the literal next stage of human evolution lies directly in the hands of each and every one of us currently working at NERV.

So lets all do our best and try not to mess up the future of mankind more then we already have!

* * *

Part 2: Profiles of Evangelion Pilots 00-03

Shinji Ikari: Pilot of Evangelion Unit-01

Age: 14

Nationality: Japanese

Mutations: None

The pilot of Evangelion Unit-01 and son of Commander Ikari, Shinji joined NERV just as the Third Angel assaulted Tokyo-3. Though he is not counted among the Children of Adam like our other pilots, Shinji is nevertheless capable of an incredibly high synch rate with Unit-01 and is among the reasons NERV has been able to score so many victories against our alien enemies as of late.

This document's concern with Shinji is primarily that he is able to synch with an Eva without bearing the mutations once thought necessary to make such a feat possible. Back when NERV was still referred to as "Gehirn," Gendou took it upon himself to create a program in which a group of several dozen children affected by the Second Impact, some mutants and others normal children who were orphaned by the disaster, were given a place to live, food to eat, and clothing to wear in exchange for their consent to be subjected to a battery of tests and other reseatch.

It was these children that provided the first round of pilot testing for the Evangelion unit prototypes. While the "normal" children often were often incapable of producing much of a bare minimum synch ratio with the then current prototype Unit-00, the mutant children were almost all capable of establishing the minimum level of synchronization needed to be considered as a candidate to become an Eva pilot. Thus was canonized the fact that while normal human beings are quite capable of synching with an Eva, those afflicted with Second Impact-related mutations simply do it better.

However, as most of the children were mentally unfit to become pilots, most were released from the program a few years after it began, leaving Rei Ayanami as NERV's sole pilot until the arrival of Shinji some time later. His ability to synch with Unit-01 even without the intensive training Rei was put through threw the entire scientific division off guard and has forced us to rethink what exactly makes a person capable of being a competent Evangelion pilot.

* * *

Rei Ayanami: Pilot of Evangelion Unit-00

Age: 14

Nationality: Japanese

Mutation: Bird [White talon-bearing wings, feathered legs w/ talons, hollow bones.]

The pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, Rei is a young girl with blue hair, an oddity in its own right, and a mutation that has caused her to resemble a humanoid bird. Her mutation has primarily manifested itself in the fact that her arms have been replaced with large wings decorated with white feathers. The pollex of each of these wings has further mutated into a claw-like structure similar to that of a bird of prey's talon. Though this has made it awkward for her to function normally at times, she has worked hard to teach herself how to adapt her unique body structure to the world around her. Such changes extend to her legs as well, which bear similar feathers to those covering her wings/arms and end in taloned feet that have made preparing a plugsuit for Rei to be quite the challenge. Her bones are also lighter then those of a normal human being, though not entirely hollow like those of a bird.

Though it has gone through several evolutions since the early days of the war against the Angels, Rei's current plugsuit lacks leggings at all, as to avoid having her talons rip the suit to a shred, and short sleeves that serve much the same purpose.

On the level of her personality, though she is still a stoic and solitary creature, as of late Rei seems to have opened up to Shinji and has even invited him to take part in several of a seemingly endless series of experiments she has conducted with the intent of discovering a way that she may fly under her own power. While her body is seemingly made for flight, possessing nearly hollow bones and wings of a size necessary for unaided flight, her body is still not quite the right shape for such activities.

As of late, however, she has discovered a talent for using her wings to make a slow decent to the earth when leaping from tall structures, which seems to have given her a glimmer of hope that true flight may someday be within her reach.

* * *

Asuka Langley Soryu: Pilot of Evangelion Unit-02

Age: 13

Nationality: American/German/Japanese

Mutation: Red Slime [Body made of a slime-like semi-solid, lack of internal organs and other structures, body regulated by a mysterious sphere located in her chest.]

The pilot of Evangelion and former ace of NERV's German branch, Asuka is best known for her slime-like body and mysterious physiology. While her mutation is classified in NERV's official

documents as a "Red Slime" in truth she is only member of the group as of writing and the "Red" designation is merely to differentiate her from any similar children who may appear in the future.

I, like many within NERV's scientific branch, was shocked by Asuka's appearance when she first landed in Japan. We all had been used to mutations that resemble animals, and to see a girl whose entire body was made up of a gelatinous substance was a wake-up call that there was far more to the Second Impact-related mutations than previously thought.

Working with materials sent over from research conducted elsewhere, it was quickly discovered that Asuka's body shape is almost entirely linked to her emotional state. When she is in a positive mood her body most often retains a solid, humanoid shape, yet while when she is in a sad or negative mood, she tends to become unstable and eventually melt into a puddle-like state in which a lack of bodily integrity impairs her movement – and, when combined with her negative state of mind, this tends to lead her to spend long hours spent by herself sulking until her body regains its proper shape.

As it would have been detrimental to NERV's goals to have one of its pilots melt into a puddle whenever she was depressed, the German branch cooked up a special plugsuit specifically to solve Asaka's unique problems. Commonly referred to as a Containment Suit, and sometimes jokingly as a "Gelatin Mold", the suit works to keep Asuka's body in its normal shape regardless of her current emotional state.

This had led Asuka to wear the suit, usually hidden under other clothing, most hours of the day, and often only taking it off when going to sleep or simply lounging around her apartment on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Because of the wear and tear it puts on the plugsuit, it has become a necessity to carry a few spares on hand just in case. In other words, to all those in the engineering department, do not become angry when Asuka comes to you in need of a replacement suit; it is simply something that will happen. If you have any complaints, please send them to my email listed at the beginning of this document.

As for the matter of how exactly Asuka's body works...we simply don't know. All tests conducted on her seems to suggest that she lacks any of the internal structures that the human body normally contains. Without a skeletal or nervous system, or, for that matter, internal organs of any kind, it is currently unknown how she functions.

What we do know is that all of this maybe related to a strange sphere-like structure that floats in Asuka's chest. It is currently hypothesized that this sphere regulates most of the functions that are spread over several organ systems in a normal human body, as well as containing elements important to maintaining her bodily integrity. This theory came to light after an experiment in which the sphere was removed from Asuka's body for study and promptly caused her to flat line as if her heart had stopped beating. After the team conducting the experiment stopped panicking, the sphere was restored to its original location, causing Asuka to regain consciousness and providing a great deal of relief to the nerve-wracked scientists of NERV's German branch.

Speculation has noted the similarity between Asuka's sphere and the Angels' "Cores," but no definitive connection between the two can be established as of the present date.

As for my personal advice for all those who will someday work with Asuka in the near future, it is best to remember that she has an enormous ego. If she ever gets out of hand, a compliment or two will likely be enough to get her back on track. However, if the situation becomes critical and she ends up melting for some reason, give her some space and she should be back to normal in a few hours. If this occurs in an emergency, such an Angel attack, and would prevent her from piloting Evangelion 02, Major Katsuragi has recommended simply asking Mari to pilot the Eva in her place.

* * *

Mari Illustrious Makinami, backup pilot of Evangelion Unit-02 and possible pilot of Evangelion Unit-03 or 04

Age: 14

Nationality: British/Japanese

Mutation: Snake [Legs replaced with a serpentine tail.]

A snake-type girl who came to NERV along with Asuka. Like her partner, she was trained at NERV's German branch and is an accomplished pilot; however, unlike Asuka, she is generally a cheerful and easygoing person, far easier to get along with. She is the backup pilot of unit 02 and primarily is called upon when Asuka is, for some reason, unable to operate the Evangelion. Though such circumstances are rare, the fact that a single pilot being knocked out or otherwise incapacitated no longer means the failure of a mission is an invaluable advantage in the war against the Angels.

As for Mari's mutation type, she fits firmly into the reptile family and more specifically resembles an enormous snake from the waist down. X-rays have confirmed that this tail is a continuation of her spinal column that runs roughly twice the length of a normal human being's spine. Due to the simple fact that this mutation has robbed Mari of her legs, her body has adapted by creating a sort of slithering motion that allows her to move at a slow-to-fair pace without sacrificing any of the benefits that come with being able to stand upright. This has led her to adapt fairly well to modern life, with the obvious exception of activities that require the use of feet, and made her more or less the public face of NERV's occasional attempts to reach out to the public and assure them that there is nothing wrong with the children affected by Second Impact-related mutations

Mari's mutation is also unique in that, unlike most children, whose mutations are more or less fixed upon birth, hers have shifted and changed over the years. Though her tail has been present since her birth, Mari's slitted eyes, strange tongue, and sharp nails are traits that have taken years to come to light. It seems the more she ages, the more serpentine she appears. As this is the only known case of such an occurrence in any mutated child, little is known about how such changes take place.

Due to her cheery disposition and general adaptive personality, Mari often comes across as the most well-adjusted of the children currently in NERV's care. That is, at least, unless she is piloting an Evangelion. While acting as a pilot, she often becomes intensely focused and displays a tendency best described as "blood-lust." Though effective, her style of piloting is rough and crude and has more often then not left whatever Eva or similar machine she was piloting with horrible damage that would take a small fortune to fix. It was for this reason she was demoted to backup pilot despite her impressive results in field training exercises. Though she is currently slated to be the primary pilot of either Evangelion Unit-03 or Unit-04, it is likely she will have to undergo hundreds of hours of training and simulation battles before being allowed on the battlefield again.

While her drive in battle can be attributed to some kind of thrill or high from piloting the Eva or taking part in a battle, there are a few things surrounding her that we have yet to The first of these is the fact that she was somehow able to behead the Sixth Angel with only the use of a progressive knife. Due to the sheer size of the creature this should have been impossible, and the fact that all radio communication was cut by Mari before the battle began, the only concrete record we have of the incident is Mari's personal testimony.

However, many at NERV seem to think Mari is lying about the incident. This mostly because a study of Unit-02's internal readings taken from the time of the battle show a pair of AT Fields were present over the course of the battle. As, at present, NERV's Evangelion are only capable of producing a single AT Field, the presence of a second can either be attributed to the Angel extending a defensive barrier or the Field being produced by an unknown source. Further study will be necessary to prove definitively what exactly happened that day.

* * *

In conclusion, it is best to take any new information regarding the the Second Impact-related mutations, the children, and the Angels with a grain of salt. Strange things happen here everyday that contradicts old research and forces us to rethink everything we know about the world around us. Because of this, I wish you all good luck in the future, I thoroughly believe we are going to need it.


	7. Come on now, Dance Like You Want to Win!

In a dark corner of NERV HQ, a bank of monitors flickered with a loop video of the young Eva pilots' latest exploits as the stern vice-commander Fuyutsuki watched on, a look of disgust on his face – for this video was among the most embarrassing NERV had ever seen in its decade and a half of existence. Depicting the inept attempts of Evangelion 01 and 02 to deal with the Seventh Angel, each battle ended the same; with both of the armored giants planted face down and feet up in the ground.

"This is an embarrassment! In all my time with this organization I have never seen such a shameful display of incompetence and poor teamwork. Explain yourselves, pilots Ikari and Soryu!" Fuyutsuki yelled at the Eva pilots waiting just below his position on the room's lowest level.

"This is all stupid Shinji's fault!" Asuka yelled as she pointed at her fellow pilot. "If Shinji would have tried harder we wouldn't be in this mess right now!"

Misato, who had been called in to observe the hearing, cringed as Asuka spoke. Since her arrival in Japan, Asuka had been nothing but a nuisance to everyone around her. Despite being a talented pilot, the ace of the German branch was an annoying, loud, and arrogant child whom no one would have put up with were it not for her talent within the cockpit of an Eva.

"Now calm down, Asuka. We both know that's not true," Misato whispered to Asuka in attempt to mediate the issue at hand.

"Well it can't be MY fault," Asuka mused, while posing in an arrogant manner. "So clearly it has to be Shinji's issue."

"SORYU!" Fuyutsuki boomed from above, catching the gelatinous pilot off guard in the process.

"Yes, Vice-Commander sir!?" Asuka snapped back.

"Ten days remain until the Seventh Angel regains its full combat capabilities. You and Ikari will have until then to remedy these problems and learn to work together. That is all. You are dismissed." Turning tail and walking out of the screening room, Fuyutsuki left the pilots and their caretaker to contemplate just how to carry out the Vice-Commander's orders.

"Well, you heard the man. You two better shape up or we're all going to suffer for it." Misato stood with a stern look on her face. Seeing herself not only as the the Eva pilots' superior officer but their mother figure as well, Misato had taken it upon herself to keep Asuka, Shinji, and the rest of the Eva pilots on the straight and narrow.

Asuka pouted as the tapes of her failure played over and over on repeat on the battery of screens and monitors behind her, while Shinji stood awkwardly silent beside her, taking his partner's insults and accusations while offering little retort in return.

"Well, if you two have no objections... until the Seventh Angel is defeated, both of you will be required to train every waking hour of the day. I'll give you the rest of the details at my place tonight." Misato spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

"WHATTTT?! But why? I'm a perfectly good pilot as is!" Asuka clearly objected in defiance of her mentor's words.

Smugly, Misato pointed her thumb at the video looping behind her.

"Fine...I'll play your little game. But I won't like it." The pilot of Evangelion 02 huffed.

"All right, I'll see you two tonight at seven then."

"Yes Captain Katsuragi!" the pilots spoke in unison, Shinji's tone respectful whereas Asuka's reeked of more then a bit of sarcasm.

* * *

Misato's apartment was a small one, littered with old beer cans, pizza boxes, and other objects usually associated with the lifestyle of a single woman with no prospect of marriage in her future. Amidst the mess and clutter, three people currently lived within the domicile. Misato, Shinji, and the genetic miracle of a bird that was the penguin known as Pen Pen. Tonight, however, the apartment played home to another guest, Asuka Langley Soryu, the mutant pilot of Evangelion 02 and the world's only human-slime hybrid.

The three humans, and one penguin, sat around the apartment's dining room table in their casual attire. It had been a long day and all involved were tired and hungry. Tonight's meeting was merely to lay out the operation that Misato had set into motion as a means to destroy the latest in a long line of mysterious horrors that had besieged mankind for many months now.

Spread out across the table were a series of directions scribbled halfheartedly upon graph paper in blue pen. The specifics of the plan were as follows: both Eva units, Unit-01 and Unit-02, would be made to act in unison to a routine choreographed to a specific piece of music. Plotting out a training regimen devoted to developing a shared rhythm between Shinji and Asuka, it was, in the end, meant to allow them to synchronize their attacks and destroy the Seventh Angel whose unique ability to split into two separate beings made it nearly invincible when dealt with in one-on-one combat.

"Listen up kids, cuz this is our plan to destroy that Angel that has been giving you kids so many problems lately. Since we know for a fact that you have to destroy both halves of the Angel at once to finish it off for good, I've had the techies over at NERV whip up a routine in which each of you will pilot your Eva in perfect harmony and attack the creature at the exact same time. That way we should be able to put an end to this mess once and for all."

Misato took another long sip of a beer she had been nursing for most of the night. It had been hell coming up with the specifics of the plan at such short notice, a process made even more difficult by the fact that it meant finding a way to get Shinji and Asuka to play friendly just long enough to destroy the Angel.

"And for this to work, I'll need the two of you to do everything together from now on. I don't care how embarrassing, awkward, or weird it will be, JUST DO IT!" Misato yelled as she slammed an empty beer can down upon the dining room table.

"But Misato...!" Asuka whined.

"NO BUTS, MISSY! This is an order from your superior officer and you will listen like a good soldier! You got that?"

"Yes, Miss Misato." Asuka sighed.

"And what about you Shinji?" Misato continued, turning her attention towards the pilot of Unit-01. "You got any complaints for me?"

"Nope, none at all."

"Good! Then let's get to work right away. I've had some equipment set up in the living room that should help you two learn to synchronize your movements."

As the trio moved from the kitchen/dining room to the living room, they soon came upon an odd set up consisting of two pads not unlike that of a certain dance-based game and matching monitors meant to record the dancers' synchronization with one another by way of a number ranging from zero to one hundred.

"Ehhhhh...we're supposed to train on that thing?" Asuka questioned as she looked over the machine.

"Yup. Each of you will attempt to touch the circles on the pads over there in time to the music we'll be using during the operation against the Angels. And you'll keep doing it until you and Shinji are able to move together in perfect harmony with one another."

"I dunno about this, Misato. All of it seems sort of...well, a little weird." Shinji stated.

"Trust me on this one, Shinji. This is going to work."

"If you say so." Asuka and Shinji spoke in unison.

"See? You're already starting to get the hang of it!" Misato said with a smile.

The two pilots grumbled in synch with one another, the only thing shared among them being a sense that Misato's entire plan was more then a bit silly.

"Now just go changed and we'll get started," Misato spoke.

Upon a chair not far from the training equipment lay a set of clothing for both Asuka and Shinji. While Shinji's attire was rather normal workout clothes for a kid his age, consisting of a pair of shorts and a tank top, Asuka's was far less conventional.

"I have to wear this weird thing?" the slime-girl pilot mused as she looked over her workout clothes.

The clothing in questioned was the latest in a long line of special plug suits that had been developed in order to keep Asuka from melting into a sniveling puddle whenever she felt a surge of emotion. The newest model was constructed from a unique porous material meant to let her skin breath and prevent the ooze that often dripped from her body during moments of intense activity from pooling within her plug suit and ruining the integrity of the garment... it was also made up of transparent plastics, but the reasoning for that innovation was far less practical in nature.

"Oh come on, Asuka," Misato answered. "It's not like anyone but me and Shinji will ever see you wearing the thing. So stop complaining and just put it on already."

Misato sighed. She was used to dealing with Shinji, emotional problems and all, by now. But Asuka was a different story. Since she had begun living with Mari after the Sixth Angel's attack, it was rare for Misato and the Second Child to interact outside of their work for NERV – and yet, for the next ten days, they would be living together. It would be hard. It would be awkward. But for the sake of saving the world from yet another Angel, damn it she would make it work!

Mumbling to herself, Asuka made her way to the apartment's bathroom where she stripped to her bare... "skin" and put on the offending garment. Other then showing off her jelly-like body for all the world to see, it fit like a glove and was as comfortable as a skin-tight bodysuit could humanly be.

"You can do this, Asuka. It's just for ten days..." she said with a sigh as the plugsuit fit itself to her body.

* * *

Both children emerged from their respective rooms clad in the workout clothing provided to them by their superior officer. While Shinji seemed indifferent to his attire, Asuka remained as angst-ridden as she had been when she had first seen the plugsuit that would provide her with a stable shape as she moved in time to the rhythm that would soon be the downfall of the Seven Angel.

"Well don't the two of you look adorable?" Misato grinned.

"What are you talking about? I look terrible," Asuka said, her pleas ignored by those around her.

"Now then, let's get down to business! Shinji, you get on the right pad and Asuka, you take the left."

As each child took their place on each respective pad, Misato stood and pressed play on a nearby stereo, beginning the song that had been chosen as the theme for the mission. Moving in time to the beat, Shinji's performance was rough but passable. Asuka's, on the other hand, was clumsy and awkward as she struggled to move in synch with her partner. With every move she made, she fell further and further behind, becoming ever more frustrated with her current circumstances.

As the song ended, the machine behind Asuka and Shinji calculated the pair's effective score, a measure of how well they had managed to press the pads' many buttons in rhythm to the music. Both children waited nervously for their score, hoping in the depths of their hearts that they would not receive a tongue lashing from Misato if it was to low. After a long moment of holding their breath, the illuminated numbers of the machine's scoring screen sprang to life, cycling through a random cycle of LCD combinations before settling on a final score. Out of 100, Shinji ranked in at 71, a respectable number for his first try. As Shinji sighed out of relief, Asuka threw a fit. Her score, a mediocre 45, enraged the the German Ace to no end. As a person who defined her existence by being better then others, it was simply inexcusable.

"Something has to be wrong with this stupid thing!" Asuka yelled. "There's no way I'd do so poorly at something like this."

"Well, Asuka," Shinji chimed in, "you weren't exactly doing your best out there."

"What did you say, you idiot?!"

"Maybe if you tried a little harder..."

"Come on, cut it out you two," Misato said as she stepped between the feuding pilots. "This is exactly why all this training is necessary. If you can't get along, you're never going to be able to beat that Angel."

"Yes, Miss Misato..." Shinji and Asuka replied with a sigh.

"All right, that's it for tonight," Misato spoke. "You two should get to bed soon, since we'll resume training as soon as you get home from school tomorrow."

Misato returned to her own room to sleep for the night, leaving Shinji and Asuka to bicker amongst themselves.

"Well I'm going to bed. You better not do anything perverted to me while I'm asleep," Asuka snapped condescendingly.

"And why would I want to do that?!" Shinji yelled.

"Isn't it obvious? You're just a child who has no idea how to treat a girl, not like my Kaji."

Shinji grumbled. He had dealt with Asuka's caustic attitude and constant bragging for over a month now, but this was simply to much. After a long day, he would have no more of the slime girl's barbed words – it was time for bed, and to bed he went, without exchanging another word with the pilot of Evangelion Unit-02.

"Stupid Shinji..." Asuka murmured to herself as she to headed off to bed.

* * *

Roll and turning for hours on end confined in her ruby-red plugsuit, Asuka simply could not sleep. Stricken with a light case of insomnia, she could do nothing but stare at the unfamiliar ceiling of Misato's apartment while she wondered what was wrong with her as of late.

"I'm the best..." she murmured.

Yet, despite all the work and training she had put into the plot to destroy the Seventh Angel over the course of the past week, Asuka had improved only twenty points in her synchronization score and still lay just behind Shinji. The problem lay not only in that someone had beaten her – she had dealt with that enough when she had trained alongside Mari back in Germany – but it was also _who_ had beaten her. Shinji was a mopey and whiny child who only piloted the Eva for some selfish reason Asuka still didn't understand. She was better then him, Asuka thought, she just had to be.

With the deadline looming, more than the slime-girl's pride lay on the line. There were mere days left before the Angel would make its renewed attack on Tokyo-3 and the two of them would be called upon to halt its advances. Failing to synch with Shinji mean the destruction of billions of yen worth of property and the possible deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings – a literal do-or-die situation.

Pushing the hypothetical destruction from her mind for a moment, Asuka, still unable to sleep, sat up and rummaged through her bag for her cell phone. Between the intensity of her current training regimen and Misato's moratorium on all outside distractions, she hadn't checked the handheld device in several days.

Scrolling through the many menus and screens that were the norm for high-end phones these days revealed that Asuka had missed quite a few calls in the time between when all this began and the current moment.

"I wonder who could possibly had called me this many times?" Asuka questioned.

Not many people knew her cellphone number, a reserved group restricted mostly to those whom she worked with at NERV and a few people from school.

A few more button presses revealed what should have been obvious as to who would pester her to such an end.

"Mari...I should have known." Asuka mused.

The serpentine maiden had called Asuka at least a dozen times over the last five days, all calls that had gone to voicemail without Asuka noticing.

"The poor thing must be going through withdrawal from not having a friend as great as me at her side every day," Asuke mused. "I guess I should do the right thing and call her before she calls _me_ another dozen times."

Like many things in this world, Asuka's slimy form was not meant to dial a phone, let alone a use the touch screen of the newest generation of cellphone. Thus she could only properly perform such an action when wearing her plugsuit, in which she could at least press at the screen without trailing protoplasmic goo all over the place.

A few pokes later, Mari's number had been called up and dialed. And it rang, and rang, and rang. It was 3 in the morning and Asuka honestly didn't expect her partner in piloting Eva 02 to answer.

However, by the fifth ring, she was proven very, very wrong in holding such an assumption.

"Is that you, Princess?" Mari spoke sleepily through the connected phones.

"Yeah, it's me, Four Eyes."

"Oh man, I've been trying to get a hold of you for like a week! How is my favorite goo-girl doing?"

"First, I'm the _only_ goo-girl you, or anyone else, knows. I'm the only one in the entire world, remember? But besides that, I'm fine...it's not really the same working with Shinji as it is with you, but I'm trying my best."

"No worries, I'm just glad your doing okay."

"So how are things?" Asuka reached for anything to talk about. She didn't want the conversation to end as that would mean having to return to the reality of her current circumstances.

"It's been boring on my end since you've left and the old men in charge decided I was too dangerous to be allowed to keep piloting for the time being," Mari answered. "But I'm managing."

"Well, I'll be home in a few days. So you won't have to suffer from a lack of my awesome presence for much longer," Asuka teased.

"I know, Princess. And I'm looking forward to you coming home, I've got it all planned out to. It'll be awesome!"

"Wait...! What are you planning?"

"It. Is. A. Secret. But I should be getting back to bed now, see you in a few dayssssss."

Mari occasionally drew out her S's when she spoke, as if mimicking sound of a snake hissing. Whether this was a part of her mutation or simply a quirk of rather strange personality, no one really knew. And with that hissing noise, the conversation drew to a close.

"Oh Mari..." Asuka sighed. "I'll be looking forward to whatever ridiculous surprise you have waiting for me.

* * *

Over the course of the next two days, Shinji and Asuka worked and lived side-by-side as they attempted to bond enough to move in synch to the battle plan that Misato had devised to bring about the downfall of the Seventh Angel. Nearly every second of every day, the pair did everything together, from brushing their teeth in the morning to eating dinner together at night, all of it meant to close the immeasurable distance that lay between their hearts and minds.

While such training did provide results, as the pair's score had improved, there was still an invisible barrier that seemed to divide the pair on some psychological level yet immeasurable by modern science. The solution to such a problem lay just outside of Misato's reach, who had thought that the perpetual bonding built into the children's training schedule would have been enough to push the pair closer together.

"This is rough." Misato thought quietly to herself as she sipped coffee on the morning of the 8th day of training. "Asuka is getting better, but it seems like something is holding Shinji back. Like he just can't bring himself to get any closer to Asuka then he already is."

As she took another sip of the caffeine-laced beverage, a thought came to her slowly-awakening mind. Shinji had been acting odd ever since Mari and Asuka had joined NERV some time ago. Though he had always been a quiet and reserved child who had difficulty dealing with other people, it wasn't like he didn't have the capacity to make friends. Though he didn't have many people close to her, he did hang out with those weird boys from school sometime and he seemed close enough to Ayanami. There was just something about the new girls that seemed to bother the young pilot somehow.

"Guess the only way to find out," Misato said, "is to ask him myself."

Rare were times when Misato and Shinji spoke on more then a superficial level, but there was no real problem with their relationship – it was simply the kind of people they both were, people who had issues connecting with others because of the traumas of their past. As much as they both tried to mend their wounded hearts, true healing never seemed to come to either of them.

Upon finishing the her coffee, Misato approached Shinji's bedroom door in a hesitant manner. A part of her wished to give Shinji his space and leave him to his own devices to solve the problem that lay between him and Asuka, but that was simply not what a good mother would do. If she couldn't even help the children under her care, what good was she as a human being?

"Shinji..." Misato spoke quietly as she knocked on her young charges door. "Are you up yet?"

The door of Shinji's bedroom slid open to reveal a tired teenager still dressed in his pajamas.

"What is it, Misato...?" Shinji yawned as he rubbed the debris from a night's sleep from his eyes. "School doesn't start for another three hours."

"I just wanted to talk for a little while, that's all."

"All right..."

Shinji sleepily shuffled his way to the dining room where so many "family" meetings had been held, sat down, yawned, and shook his head in an effort to wake himself further. A few moments later, Misato joined her young charge, sitting directly across from him around the square table.

"Well..." Misato spoke awkwardly. She honestly had no idea where to begin with the topic.

After a minute that seemed to extend into eternity, Shinji finally spoke, breaking the awkward silence that had established itself between the two of them.

"Well what?" Shinji questioned.

"Um... I've noticed that you and Asuka aren't getting along very well even with all the time you two had spent together lately. Is something else the matter?"

Another moment of silence fell over the apartment's dining room as Shinji gazed nervously away from his caretaker. He very well knew that there was more to why he was so uncomfortable around Asuka then he let on, but finding a way to vocalize those concerns was a task made nearly impossible by his own issues.

"I understand if you don't like how bossy she is or how she always brags about how great she is, but underneath that I'm sure Asuka is a decent girl who needs friends just as badly as the rest of us do. So I think you should really give it your all to try and make friends with her, even if just for the upcoming battle."

"It's not that..." Shinji spoke in a quiet tone, his gaze still turned away from Misato.

"Then what is it?"

"She's just too...weird." Shinji grasped at words to describe his problems with Asuka and others of similar ilk. In the end, however, his phrasing came as vague and unhelpful.

"Well I know that her being German and all that can come across as..."

"No, it's not that either." Shinji interrupted.

"Well if it's not her attitude or the fact that she's foreign then it has to be...Shinji, do you dislike Asuka because of the way she looks?"

Shinji was rendered quiet once more, an act that only confirmed Misato's suspicions.

"Oh Shinji... I know Asuka may look strange." Misato spoke in a tone meant to calm. "But aside from her appearance, she's a human just like you and me."

"I know that."

"Then why does it bother it so much?"

"I don't know!" Shinji yelled out of frustration.

"Oh, Shinji..."

Misato moved closer to Shinji, and when she come to a rest as his side, she patted him on the head.

"We'll work through this together. But till we can figure all this out, I want you to do your best to get along with Asuka. Can you do that for me?"

"I'll try my best..." Shinji said as he moved his head to the side in an attempt to escape from Misato's display of affection.

"All right then. We've got just one day left till the Angel makes its next attack. I think we can do this!"

The last day of training passed far more smoothly then those that had come before. Each possessed by their own reason to fight through the awkwardness of someone they weren't entirely comfortable being around for such an extended length of time, Asuka and Shinji had managed to achieve that which previously been thought impossible, moving together in near perfect synchronization.

"See? I told you I could do it," Asuka gloated as she finished the final training session.

"I've got to say, you've both come a long way from having your Eva buried face-down in the mud." Misato's praise may have been a bit sarcastic, but overflowed with pride in the improvement of her young students.

"Do you think we're really ready to fight the Angel?" Shinji said as he wiped the sweat of the prior training session from his brow.

"I certainly think you are. But all that matters now is how you two preform on the battlefield." Misato's voice became stern. "Until the assault begins tomorrow, you two are both dismissed."

"Yes, captain!"

The fated day had finally arrived, and in a few short minutes, Evangelion Units 01 and 02 would soon be locked in combat with the Seventh Angel.

"Are you two ready for this?" Misato radioed to both Evangelion.

"I was born ready, Misato!" Asuka said with confidence.

"I think so," Shinji muttered meekly.

"All right then, you two will have exactly one minute to pull this off. Just remember everything that you've been trained towards the during the last week and you'll be fine." Misato spoke confidently. "Now begin the music and...Evangelion 01 and 02 launch!"

Rocketing upward from their underground elevator shafts and toward the surface where the Angel awaited them, the Eva soon sprang in to action, running towards their target in near perfect unison.

The Angel in turn attempted to split itself in two to confuse and confound the pilots, just as it had in the past. This time, however, they were prepared. Assaulting each half of of the Angel with lightning fast movements and attacking in synch with one another, they prevented the strange creature from gaining an advantage in being able to double team an individual target.

Robbed of its sole advantage, the Angel retreated in an attempt to gain its footing. The Eva, still in time to the 30 seconds or so that remained of music, gave chase, leaping into the air and planting a double jump kick on the Angel's two halves. As the blows connected, the Angel, its core in danger of breaking, fused into its original form in an attempt to bolster its defenses.

This too, however, was futile, as both Eva launched one last attack on the combined Angel's core, shattering it with all the strength their enormous frames could muster.

"They did it!" Misato yelled from behind the safety of NERV's radio communications system. "Come on home, you two deserve some time to rest."

In strict defiance of Misato's words, what remained of the Angel soon exploded into a cross-shaped font of energy and power, leaving both Eva to lay burnt and beaten with their upper halves planted in a huge crater.

"This is all your fault!" Asuka yelled through the Eva's communication system.

"How is it my fault?!" Shinji replied.

"Some things never change..." Misato sighed from afar.

* * *

NEXT EPISODE

As the newest Angel assaults Tokyo-3 from above, NERV struggles to devise a plan to defeat the creature without risking the total destruction of the city!

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Gendou Ikari receives a mysterious item from an unknown person. What mystery could dwell within the strange gift and how does it relate to the mystery of the mutations that sprung up after Second Impact? All will be answered next time in "The Angel Who Fell From the Land of the Stars."

And of course, there will be lots of fanservice~


	8. Even Birds are Chained to the Sky

Somewhere in Nevada, United States

Upon the distant horizon of a quiet day, a strange object approached the Earth from on high at a mighty speed, the local wildlife paying heed to its approach with naught but a passing glance. Just miles away, at NERV's American branch located within the well hidden confines of an old military base, those of higher intellect scrambled to glean any information they could from the unknown object.

"Blood Type Orange, sir," one technician sitting before a computer terminal relayed to his superiors who stood on a platform overlooking the bases enormous display monitor.

"Is it an Angel?!" the older man yelled, slamming one fist upon a desk before him in the process.

"We don't know sir - until it breaches the Earth's atmosphere, we won't be able to get a solid reading either way."

There was a general feeling of dread hanging over the command center, leaving everyone glued to the monitors, praying that the mysterious object hanging over their heads was not among the monsters come to plague mankind in recent days. As the American branch was used primarily as an R&D site whose primary purpose was the production and testing of NERV's newest weapons and technology, they were far from combat-ready.

Of course, while the branch's technicians and other personnel had watched the horrors of the battle against the angel's from afar up until now, they all knew that someday the alien creatures would come for them as well. Though defended by the prototype Evangelion, Unit-04, the base could not withstand an assault on the scale that the GeoFront in Japan could. A full-scale conflict would mean the end of them all.

The old man serving as branch commander wiped the nervous sweat from his brow with a handkerchief – not only his future, but that of everyone under his command, now rested on the off chance that they would not soon come into conflict with an Angel. But waiting was not something they could afford to do. In the name of saving all those under his command, drastic action was necessary.

"All non-essential personnel..." the old man muttered, his voice heavy with import. "As most of you know, our base is not ready for the scale of conflict that would come along with engaging an Angel. For this reason, I am ordering an evacuation."

"Sir! What about you?"

"Someone needs to protect this place's secrets from that monster. As your leader, I will go down with this ship."

"Commander..."

"I repeat, all non-essential personnel are to evacuate the base immediately! The rest of you are to prepare for the launch of Unit-04. We will not go down without a fight!"

"Yes sir!" the remaining technicians said in unison as their brethren fled the base.

As dozens of people filed out of the base, the unknown object finally entered Earth's atmosphere. Hurtling towards the surface at speeds impossible to gauge with from so far away. Projected to land in the desert not far from the base, the moment of truth would soon be at hand.

"Target projected to land in the desert thirty miles from here in roughly ten minutes," shouted a technician to her peers, "and Evangelion Unit-04 has been posted in a defensive position. What are your orders, sir?"

"We sit. And we wait," the old man said with a breath of fatalism dancing upon his lips.

He had resigned himself to the fact that he would die this day, and nothing in all the world would change his mind.

Soon enough, as predicted, the immense objected crashed down not far from the base. As the massive entity buried itself deep into the dead earth of the desert, a powerful shock wave ripped through the area, decimating the local landscape and killing anything unlucky enough to be caught in its wake. It was amidst the smoke and fire of this hellscape that the object soon rose from the crater in which it had buried itself and began to hover over the barren wasteland, its projected path poised to overtake the branch base in a matter of minutes.

"COMMANDER!" the technician manning the main monitor yelled. "Analysis shows Blood Type Blue! It's an Angel!"

Upon the main screen the image of the Eighth Angel finally displayed itself. A giant obelisk ringed with four immense spike-like structures and a massive blue "eye" displayed like a great gem upon its apex, it was truly a sight to behold.

"It has been an honor serving with you all... now let's show that Angel what we're made of!" the commander bellowed. "Evangelion Unit-04, prepare for combat!"

Evangelion 04, a massive white humanoid and the inversely-colored twin of Evangelion Unit-03, stood outside the base armed to the teeth with every armament the base could muster. Though it was nowhere near ready for all-out combat, having been in development until just yesterday, it was still among the mightiest weapons mankind had at its disposal.

Braced to intercept the floating fortress that was the Eighth Angel, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-04 was a young man who had been slated to conduct a Dive Experiment within the mighty giant just days before. Formally nothing but a test pilot, he had been pressed into real service the moment the strange creature appeared on the horizon. Inexperienced and lacking in technical knowledge, every bit of his body sweated profusely as he kept his sight firmly upon the quickly approaching Angel. More nervous then he had been in all his life, he had staked the battle on a single strike the second the angel came within firing distance. In one mighty barrage he would unleash every projectile weapon in his arsenal and pray to the heavens that it would be enough to destroy the target.

That moment, however, would never come. As the Angel entered the range of his many weapons, a great flash of light erupted across the horizon, dotting the landscape in a shower of powerful explosions in the shape of grand crosses. One such blast, as it would so happen, burst forth directly around Unit-04, disintegrating the pallid giant in one fell sweep.

"My god..." one technician muttered in a tone of pure terror. "Evangelion Unit-04 has been completely destroyed. What are your orders sir?"

"Relay a message to NERV HQ about this and then get out of here. This battle is over, and we have lost." The commander stood firm with resolve – he would go down with what had become his life's work.

As the last of the technicians fled the scene, another of the Angel's energy bombs screamed from above, crashing into the base with a cacophony of sound as it did. With yet another cross-shaped explosion, the base was reduced to nothing more then a hold in the ground in a matter of seconds. The Angel, unmoved by the lives it had just extinguished, simply floated over the burning wreckage that had once been NERV's American branch, heading ever so slowly towards its final destination.

* * *

"An angel?! Are you sure?" Misato cried as the as the truth regarding the destruction of Evangelion Unit-04 and the American branch base was relayed to her via a prerecord message.

It had only taken seconds for the message to reach the bridge of NERV HQ, but within that span the American base had been vaporized in the grandest display of the Angel's power yet. The entirety of the Tokyo-3 branch had been shocked by the news. Until just yesterday there had been periodic communication between the two branches, exchanging research notes and technical plans in an effort to bolster NERV's anti-Angel capabilities. Bur now, in the span of a few hours, it had been wiped from the face of the Earth. It was disconcerting to say the least.

"Yes, ma'am." Hyuga responded from behind his terminal. "I can play the message again if you want."

Misato's face wore a cringe. There was no need to play the message again. The frantic cries of the operator behind the message and generally morbid atmosphere of the call were enough to make her wish she would never have to hear such things again.

"No, that won't be necessary. For now, our primary objective is to determine just when the Angel will break land and reach Tokyo-3 and what we will do once it does."

Misato quickly collected herself. As NERV's director of operations, it was her job to make sure everything ran as it should. For the sake of those around her, she could not appear distraught, no matter how awful things may seem. There would be time for grieving when there was nothing left of the Angel but a cracked core and enormous crater.

"The Magi's estimates have the Angel arriving in Japan within a day," exclaimed Hyuga. "As for what to do about it...we don't know – no information about the creature could be extracted from what little footage was recorded of it before the base was destroyed."

"Damn it!" Misato said in a huff. "What options do we have?"

"I could call up Dr. Akagi. She should be able to help."

"It's as good a plan as any," Misato affirmed. "Everyone, take a ten-minute break until we can get a hold of Ritusko. Trust me, we're all going to need all the rest we can get."

A repeating video feed of the 8th Angel, as it crossed the ocean headed for Japan, flickered upon the enormous monitor positioned near the head of the bridge. Its monolithic form served as a grim reminder that if a plan was not drawn up soon, Tokyo-3 would soon suffer the same fate as it's American counterpart. All of this served to establish a morbid atmosphere among the bridge's staff as they awaited the return of the head of their science department and, with some luck, a solution to their current predicament.

"Why the long faces, everyone?" Ritsuko asked sarcastically as she finally arrived at the bridge.

"You're late, Ritsuko," Misato said with a stern gaze.

"A technicality."

"That Angel is going to blow this base to bits in 23 hours and you're saying your being ten minutes late is a _technicality_?!"

"Of course. All that matters is we destroy the Angel within the 23 hours remaining until its untimely arrival above this base. You, of all people, should be used to working on a doomsday timetable like this, Misato."

"All right, I give," Misato conceded. "You have a point. But what are we going to do about the Angel? We know nothing about it, aside from the fact that it destroyed the American branch by raining energy blasts on it from above."

"Well, our friends over at the U.N were kind enough to try and sortie with the Angel over the Pacific Ocean. "

"And that helps us... how?"

Misato was annoyed. Though she was used to Ritsuko's self-serving manner of speech, she had no patience for it when the lives of thousands of people – and billions more, should they fail to eliminate the Angel – lay firmly on their broad shoulders.

"Patience, Misato," Ritsuko chided. "I was getting to that. Well, as it turns out, all those fancy toy planes they threw at the Angel did exactly no damage to it. And, on top of that, the thing never even deployed its AT Field."

"Oh, and so you don't complain about me taking forever to explain all this," continued the blonde science head, "that means the Angel's hide is nearly invulnerable to all normal forms of munitions, meaning the only way we'll be able to pierce it is either to use a heavy weapon on par with the one we used on the Fourth Angel, or, more simply, to find this thing's core and destroy it. For the sake of covering all our bases, I would suggest a combination of both."

"We can work with that!" Misato cheered. "Someone! Find me a heavy sniper rifle and ready Evangelion Unit-01 to fire on the Angel as soon as it is within firing distance. Units 00 and 02 will act as backup. Everyone, we have 23 hours to make this happen! We can do this!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

* * *

That night, NERV HQ was abuzz with dozens of technicians, engineers, and scientists who had stayed behind in an effort to expedite Misato's plan to procure, calibrate, and load the enormous energy rifle that would be sent alongside Evangelion Unit-01 as NERV's primary offensive tool in the battle against the 8th Angel. The gargantuan weapon was certainly impressive, but the real question was whether it would be able to dent the Angel's seemingly invulnerable service. Nevertheless, it was the best option they had.

"Well this certainly is impressive," Ritsuko chimed as she surveyed the rifle currently being affixed to Unit-01's side. "But you know, it was a real pain getting this thing ready for field use. It hasn't even been tested in a simulation battle, and yet you're demanding it be used in real combat like it was nothing at all! You must have great faith in us all, Misato."

"I do," Misato said with a grin. "We are humanity's last and only line of defense against these monsters, and time and time again we've managed to do the impossible and defeat every foe that has appeared before us. There is no group of people in all the world I trust more then the people working here at NERV."

"And that's why your the the director of operations." Ritsuko laughed.

"Shut up, Ritsuko," replied Misato, put off by her inability to tell whether Ritsuko was speaking with sarcasm.

"No, I'm serious," reaffirmed Ritsuko. "You do good work around here and you should be proud of yourself."

"You can save the praise for when we take down this Angel."

"Of course."

Elsewhere, the pilots who would soon be sent into battle against the newest Angel spoke among themselves in NERV's lounge.

"Do you think we'll be able to win?" Shinji mumbled, a can of instant coffee in his hand and his back against the wall of vending machines that lined the break room. He had been morose ever since the news broke that the 8th Angel had destroyed not only Evangelion Unit-04 but the American branch base as well. Of all the Angels up till the present, every Angel had, at best, managed to destroy a few buildings and injure a handful of civilians. This was different. Dozens of people had died in the explosion that destroyed the base, and it was very likely hundreds more would have suffered the same fate if an evacuation hadn't been ordered.

"Of course we will!" Asuka gloated.

The gelatinous pilot of Unit-02, completely unlike Shinji, was sure victory was but a stone's throw away from her waiting hand. Still high on her co-victory over the 7th Angel, she was sure, in the core of her jelly-like being, that she could do wrong. She would defeat the newest Angel. She would do it with style and grace, and she would prove once and for all that she was the best Eva pilot in the whole damn world.

"But Unit-04 was destroyed before it could even make a move!" exclaimed Shinji, a tone of worry clearly audible in his voice.

"Who cares?" Asuka gave her fellow pilot a look of disapproval. "That stupid thing was being piloted by some random guy they had forced to do it just so the commander could buy some time for everyone to escape. We're not just 'some guys,' Shinji – we are the best pilots NERV has ever seen and we can do this!"

Pumping her hand into the air as a sign of her impending victory, some of Asuka's slimy body slid off, staining the ground and Shinji's tennis shoes in the process.

"That's sort of gross, Asuka," Shinji said in monotone as he bent over to clean off his shoes.

"Shut up, stupid," rebutted an embarrassed Asuka. "You know I can't help that."

"Whatever..."

"Idiot...Anyway, what's Wonder Girl up to? Isn't she taking part in this operation?" Asuka questioned, curious as to Rei's whereabouts.

"I think she went off to be eat dinner by herself," answered Shinji. "You know, now that I think about it, she's been spending a lot of time by herself lately."

"And that's different from the way she usually is... how?"

Shinji glanced toward the ground. "For a while, we'd been spending a few days a week trying to think up and test ways that she could fly... but lately, she hasn't asked me to help her at all."

"Maybe she just gave up, you know. I really don't think that humans are meant to fly."

"Says the girl made of jelly."

"You little...!" Asuka growled, ready to pounce upon Shinji and suffocate him within the confines of her jelly-like body. She wouldn't however, as even she knew that he was needed to save the world.

* * *

Within Evangelion Unit-01's entry plug, Rei sat in quiet contemplation as, outside, workers sprinted around her, readying the mechanical behemoth for combat. Ignoring the hustle and bustle, Rei stared long and hard at her snow-white wings. As of late, her experiments had brought her closer and closer towards her goal of true flight. Though it took the help of a system of counter balances and balloons to keep her aloft for now, an idea suggested by Ritusko herself, she was slowly learning the proper way to work with the winds and shift her body in turn – yet the closer she got to her goal, the more scared she became.

For so long she had been nothing but one among many. An expendable soldier that could be replaced at the drop of a hat. However, as her goal of flying with her bestial brethren in the calm night skies drew ever closer, she would no longer be one of many, but rather a unique being, the first human capable of true unaided flight.

That thought terrified her. She was no longer expendable, no longer one that could be replaced.

"Who am I...?" she murmured to herself in a monotone.

In forging her own identity, Rei had lost that which had defined her as a human being.

Who she was and who she would become in the near future – these were questions the answers to which would not come easily. It would take hard work and many years to rebuild her shattered persona into a working whole again, work that could not begin until the current crisis was resolved.

"Hey, Rei. You should get some sleep. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow," Misato, who had been making a sweep of the base to remind everyone to get sleep, said as she peeked her head into 00's cage, breaking Rei's meditative trance in the process.

"Yes, ma'am."

Rising from her seated position, Rei silently made her way to the quarters where NERV personnel who were forced to stay overnight at the base slept. However, as her mind was still heavy with thoughts of much import, it would be quite some time before she drifted to sleep in the windowless room where the sky seemed as far away as it did on the first day she had dreamed of dancing among the stars.

* * *

The night came and went, as the new day dawned and the 8th Angel slowly approached Japan's coast. Through the tireless work of everyone at NERV HQ, the Evangelions had been properly outfitted and ready for launch at a moment's notice. The pilots, for the most part, were well rested and ready to launch into battle. All that was left was to wait.

"The Angel will make landfall in five hours, Captain. What are your orders?" Hyuga said.

"In four hours we will deploy the Eva and, as the rifle's effective range is a few miles, we will deploy Unit-01 just outside the city, ready to intercept the Angel the second it comes within range. Units 00 and 02 will be deployed on standby if, for some reason, Shinji isn't able to destroy it."

Misato, her resolve like steel, stared deeply into the monitor that displayed the Angel's current location and trajectory. Soon, this operation would be out of her hands and left to the children who were chosen to pilot the Eva. It was a shame that ones so young were being forced to fight an adults' war, but it was a necessary sin. No one else could pilot the Eva nor fight the Angels. All she could really do was make sure the kids home safe at the end of the day.

"I know you can do this, Shinji. For all of us, please, just trust in yourself," Misato said quietly.

For several hours, Tokyo-3 stood still. An evacuation had been ordered the night prior, leaving the city a ghost town devoid of human life. Amidst the silence, the giants of steel and flesh known as Evangelions rushed to the surface with a clang of metal and sparks. Presiding over the empty city that would soon become a battle field, it felt almost as if the whole world was holding silent vigil in honor of all those who had died in the Angel's wake.

"Are you ready out there, Shinji?" Misato radioed to Unit 01.

"I think so."

"You can do this, just line up your shot like you did during Yashima and you'll be fine. We think the green gem on its pinnacle is the core, so aim for that."

"Yes, ma'am," Shinji replied, shakily yet surely.

"And remember, if things aren't going just right, don't be afraid to ask Asuka or Rei for help."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good luck... I'll see you at home tonight." The radio flickered off; soon, the real operation would begin.

Imposing and unflinching, the flying fortress that was the 8th Angel had just made landfall not an hour before, its course fixed firmly on arriving in Tokyo-3. Its journey, for the most part, had been an easy one. Despite the interference of the U.N. Air Force, who had done as much to damage the Angel as a gnat may an elephant, it had arrived in Japan in a pristine state, its pearl-colored, stone-like skin glistening in the sun like fine jewelry. Had it not been a horrible instrument of death and destruction, it would have been a beautiful sight to behold.

Meanwhile, just outside Tokyo-3, Evangelion Unit-01 stood in a prone position, ready to snipe at the Angel's core. Though nervous, its pilot was ready to do what he must to ensure the future of the human race. He had run away twice before, only to come back when the chips were down. He had doubted his own ability and been called a fool. But still, here he was. His identity and self-worth had become intertwined with piloting the Eva, but that was yet another problem whose solution lay on the other side of tomorrow, ready to be solved upon the demise of the 8th Angel.

Behind him, situated just outside the projected blast radius of the Angel's explosive attacks, stood Evangelion Units 00 and 02, posted as back up just in case Shinji failed to destroy the Angel. Misato had sincerely hoped that their intervention would not be necessary.

"Hey, Wonder Girl, do you think Shinji can actually do this?" Asuka radioed to Rei.

"I do not know," replied Rei, her voice retaining its usual monotone.

"Well that's weird. I thought you'd know, seeing as you two were soooooo close," teased the redheaded pilot.

"He has only been helping me with my experiments," responded Rei, unaffected by Asuka's taunt. "That is all."

"Well, not like it matters. I'm sure NERV's Golden Boy will have no problem taking down the Angel."

Rei said nothing in response, for her ears were filled with the strange whirring sound the Angel made as it floated over the land and towards the GeoFront and NERV HQ.

"I see the Angel!" Shinji yelled at the massive obelisk floated into view.

"Good! Just remember everything you've learned from your training and take it out!" Misato radioed.

Nodding to no one in particular, Shinji gazed through the scope of the Eva's massive rifle and stabilized its view firmly upon the massive gem-like structure embedded at its zenith. He would only have one shot before it began a counter attack of powerful explosions that had previous leveled Evangelion Unit-04 in a single stroke. And for a moment, and with a deep breath, the shot was aimed and ready. It was time to pull the trigger.

"Come on!" Shinji yelled as he jerked the handle inside the cockpit, causing Unit-01 to pull the rifle's massive trigger with all its might.

Roaring to life, the gun began to glow and rumble, and as it did, a single bullet of pure energy leapt from the barrel and towards it's imposing target. Flying through the air at incredible speed, it was a matter of mere seconds before it came into contact with the angel, which responded to the assault by promptly projecting its AT Field and deflecting the bullet harmlessly into the air.

"Damn... so it does have an AT Field. Shinji, try again." Misato spoke through the radio.

A second shot was soon readied and fired. And a third. And a forth. All of which were repelled with little effort on the Angel's part.

"What am I supposed to do now?!" Shinji cried in frustration.

"Standby," Misato ordered. "We're sending Rei in to try and tear a hold in its AT Field. Rei!"

"Yes?" The stoic pilot of Unit-00 chimed in.

"Get as close as you can and try to throw one of those spears through it's AT field. That should buy us enough time to get a good shot at its core."

"Understood. I will approach the target now."

Spear firmly in hand, Rei dashed across the environs of Tokyo-3 at breakneck speed as the Angel began its counterattack. Dodging away from areas that would soon be reduced to a fiery hole in the ground, she soon arrived a few hundred meters from the Angel. Like Shinji before her, Rei too lined up her projectile assault with the intent of ending the Angel's reign of terror once and for all.

With all the strength she could muster, Unit-00 hurled the spear towards the Angel's core. Flying true and as sure as an arrow, the projectile soon collided with the target, forcing it to once more raise its omnipotent defensive barrier. Though the pointed end of the spear had managed to wedge itself into the barrier, the hole it had formed was far from enough to allow a shot from Unit-01's oversized rifle to penetrate the field's surface.

"No," Rei swore quietly to herself.

"Let me take care of this!" Asuka screamed through the radio. "You messed up, and that means it's my turn to clean up after you dorks."

"No," Rei repeated.

"No what?"

"I will do this myself," Rei resolved.

And as she did, a mysterious force awakened within her. Radiating throughout her avian form and beyond the physical reaches of Unit-00, the welling power manifested in an AT Field of immense power and size.

"Ayanami's synch ratio has reached 200% and rising!" Maya yelled to her superior.

"Unit-00's AT Field has been deployed at twice its maximum range!" Hyuga shouted.

"Dr. Akagi, what is going on here?!" Aoba added.

For a single, eternal moment, the bridge remained silent, the surging instruments and warning graphs of the Magi System the only sign that time itself had not suddenly came to a screeching halt. Ritsuko stood in silent awe as she awaited the Magi's consensus on the situation.

"Well?" Maya spoke impatiently.

"This can't be right," Ritsuko muttered. "No human being should be able to reach a synch ratio like that without experiencing some kind of ego breakdown.

"What does that mean?" Misato said.

"If a pilot exceeds a certain synch ratio," Ritsuko explained, "their sense of self begins to break down and they lose their physical form. The fact that Rei is still functioning as a human being means that her ego is more powerful then that of the Eva."

"Do you know what is going to happen next?" Misato demanded.

"No... no, I don't. This phenomena is one that none of our models could have predicted."

"Sorry to interrupt," Aoba interjected, "but the system has detected a second AT field, it's coming from within Unit 00!"

"What?!" Misato snarled. "Ritsuko, explain this now! What the hell is going on here?!"

"Something we, as humans, can never hope to comprehend," Ritsuko said with reverent awe. "It's all up to them now."

Much as Ritusko had conjectured, the phenomena occurring within the cockpit of Unit-00 was one that exceeded the boundaries of mortal thought. From within, a second grand AT Field had been forced into existence. Created not by the Eva but a force far more powerful, it existed not as a barrier but rather a flat disk, several meters across, and radiated with white light more glorious then any found in nature. The physical manifestation of the soul, it stood like the step of a grand staircase, inviting Rei to ascend to the heavens above like the gods of legend.

And so she did. Leaping upon the disk with all the grace of a ballet dancer, Evangelion Unit-00 moved unlike it ever had before, less like a machine and more so like something more. And before it, another such disk appeared, and so it leapt again, and again, and again, dodging through fire and brimstone as the 8th Angel attempted, with all its might, to blow the robotic giant to smithereens – yet as it did, the Eva climbed higher and higher, seemingly rushing towards the skies as if all life on Earth depended upon it reaching its destination. That destination, as all those watching in awe back at HQ soon found, was the angel's apex and it's goal the destruction of its AT field.

Upon reaching the top of the radiant staircase, Eva 00 began to gleam like the very sun, its enormous form shrouded in a haze of swirling lights. Standing triumphantly before its prey, it hoisted a progressive knife before the creature's gem-like core and, with all its seemingly divine strength, jammed the blade into the barrier, ripping it asunder in a clumsy manner that stood in stark contrast to the elegant motif of its ascent.

Unable to defend itself from above, the Angel's AT field shattered like a pane of glass struck by a brick, leaving the massive creature defenseless for a brief moment.

"Ikari..." Rei radioed.

"ARE YOU OK, AYANAMI!?" Shinji shouted.

"Yes...but you must end this."

"Got it!"

Without a second thought, Shinji loaded the rifle once more, positioned his shot, and fired one last round. Speeding through the air, the energy bolt defied the fate of its predecessors and whizzed past Unit-00's shoulder, breaching the Angel's AT Field. A moment later, it was lodged within the core itself, shattering it from within.

"Did we do it?" Shinji wondered aloud.

They had indeed done it. Without the support of it's core, the Angel was no more, crashing into the earth with a mighty thud that kicked up a cloud of dirt and debris into the air that rained upon the land for miles around.

Unit-00, meanwhile, fell to Earth supported by the same mysterious force that had propelled it skyward in the first place.

"I've got you, Ayanami!" Shinji yelled as he propelled Unit-01 at top speed towards the gently falling star that was Unit-00. In mere moments he had come to stand just below Unit-00's path of descent, armed outstretched to catch his fallen friend.

"Are you all right?" Shinji asked as the mechanical behemoth fell gently into Unit-01's arms.

"I'm fine," Ayanami relayed as Unit-00 lost its divine luster and returned to its normal blue color scheme.

"Thank god."

"I don't know how you did it, Rei. But you did. Good job kids, come on home."

There was no response to Misato's message of congratulations, as a certain pair seemed too busy basking in one another's glow to care.

* * *

Several hours later, NERV HQ, R&D Sector

Truth was meant to set one free, to cast away the darkness of the unknown and paint the world as the dominion of humankind. Other times, however, it sometimes reveals things that mankind was best off not knowing. Terrifying truths that lead one to believe that the world is not as it seems. It was such truths that Ritsuko, after watching for hours upon hours the footage of the battle with the 8th Angel, had discovered. It was unnerving, scary, and more than a bit unsettling – but as a scientist, it was something she simply could not ignore.

"So you see, Maya, if you look carefully here and here," she said, pointing at several spots within the video in which Eva-00 was clearly on screen. "If we cut away the glow, what do you see?"

"Feathers?" Maya asked in a confused manner.

"Exactly."

"But why?"

"This is just a theory, but I'm fairly sure, that when Rei's synch ration reached as high a level as it did, she temporarily attained a state of being in which her ego became powerful enough to effect the physical world around her."

"So how is that and the feathers connected, senpai?"

"I was just getting to that. I'm fairly sure that, in achieving that level of mental power, she became capable of altering the Eva's physical form on an immensely large scale, granting it, even if just for a few seconds, an avian form. Sound familiar?"

"Oh my god...!"

"My thoughts exactly. AT Fields, The Angels, the mutations that occurred following Second Impact, and Unit-00's mysterious display today... they're all connected."

"Are you going to tell the Commander all this?"

"I'm fairly sure he already knows."

"But how?"

"It's best not to question these kind of things, Maya. Now come on, let's go get something to drink. It's on me."

* * *

NEXT EPISODE

As the shadowy 9th Angel threatens to swallow all of Tokyo-3, Shinji becomes trapped within it's dark depths. Forced to confront the truth of mankind's existence, he stands on the edge of madness with every new revelation.

Can NERV rescue him in time? And what connection does the Angel's hold to the mutated children?

Find out next time in "The Abyss stares back."

And of course, their will be lots of fanservice~


	9. The Abyss Gazes Back

Located at the apex of NERV HQ, the Commander's office was littered with esoteric symbols and a foreboding architecture meant to evoke fear in all who stepped within its expansive confines. Empty, save for a single desk behind which sat Gendou Ikari, the enormous room's very nature seemed to conjure up thoughts of dark rituals and forbidden knowledge. Today, however, the Commander had a single, jovial visitor, a scruffy man in his early 30s who had brought with him a very, very important package.

"Yo!" Kaji greeted the Commander in a nonchalant manner. "How's it going?"

Gendou remained unmoved by his visitor's antics – this meeting was merely to exchange a certain package for a rather large sum of money. Any interactions beyond that were a nuisance of which Gendou wanted no part.

"That is none of you concern," the bespectacled older man replied from behind his desk. "Now, did you bring the item I requested?"

"Of course," Kaji answered. "I had a hell of a time keeping this thing away from the old men over at SEELE, but as per our agreement, I present to you... the grandest of all the world's treasures."

Kaji hefted a large briefcase from his side and placed it upon the Commander's desk. A nondescript brown affair, the only sign that there was anything inside more important then a businessman's expense reports was a security device befitting a top secret government organization. As Kaji turned the case's tumblers in the correct order, it popped open with a click as a cloud of supercooled air billowed out, covering the desk in a matter of moments.

What remained inside was an artifact from the beginning of time, a twisted human embryo the size of a man's fist encased in a block of Bakelite. For a moment, both men stared in wonder at the strange object, taking in the billions of years of existence that lay upon its tiny brow.

"I take you've got big plans for this little guy, Commander?"

Gendou smirked. "Well of course. What you see before you now is the beginning of all our recent troubles and the progenitor of the next stage of human evolution: Adam."

Normally one to take everything in stride, even Kaji was confused by Gendou's cryptic commentary.

"Not to be rude," Kaji interjected, a puzzled look upon his face, "but what the hell are you talking about?"

"You'll find out soon enough." Gendou never truly spoke the truth of any matter, choosing instead to hide just enough to prevent those around him from ever truly seeing the big picture. And those who were ever unlucky enough to discover the whole truth were dealt with swiftly and without mercy. " But till then, you will find your payment delivered in full in your bank account by tomorrow morning."

"That's music to my ears," Kaji sounded off, feigning interest in Gendou's schemes. "Well, I'll see you later. You have fun playing with that shriveled up corpse of yours."

Kaji walked out of Gendou's office, waving behind him as he went. It truly didn't matter what Gendou, SEELE, and the rest of NERV were up to. He wanted no part of their grand game – his only loyalty was to himself... well, perhaps that wasn't entirely true.

Gendou, meanwhile, remained at his desk, carefully eying his newest prize. This small creature had been the beginning of everything and would soon bring about the end of that which had begun fifteen years ago.

"All is going according to plan. Soon we will finish the work of Adam and lead humanity towards its proper place in the world."

His eyes hidden behind thick glasses and one more sly smile upon his lips, Gendou shut the case, shielding the embryo of the progenitor from the outside world, and from any prying eyes that may have been watching from between unseen nooks and crannies.

* * *

School had just let out for the day, filling the streets of Tokyo-3 with hundreds of children eager to get home and cast aside their stuffy uniforms and books in favor of an evening parked in front of a television or similar device That was, at least, for those who were not Shinji Ikari, who inevitably found himself tasked with preparing a meal for both himself and Misato, a woman who had formerly subsisted on a diet of beer, convenience store takeout, and ramen. As he walked home, his gaze fixed firmly downward, lonely despite being in a crowd a hundred strong, thoughts of the past few weeks filled his head.

The conflict with the nearly invincible Angel that Ayanami had felled through what may as well be called a miracle bothered him greatly. Ever since he had come to Tokyo-3, the number of mutant children he had been forced to interact with on a daily basis had increased a thousandfold. When he had still lived with his teacher in the hinterlands of Japan, he had never seen such people, but here, they were everywhere. For every three "normal" people, there seemed to be one of "them". The girl who cleaned the chalkboard everyday had the ears and tail of a cat, the student rep had gills and webbed hands like a fish, and then there were Asuka and Mari, one like a humanoid blob of gelatin and the other with the lower half of a great serpent – and despite working with them constantly, he was still weirded out by the both of them.

Something about the way Asuka's body ebbed and rippled as she moved and the manner in which Mari's tail swept from side to side as she slithered across the ground unnerved him. It was nothing against them as people, though Asuka could be a bit rude at times, but it all seemed so unnatural, like human beings simply shouldn't move or act like those two did.

Shinji sighed; Misato had told him awhile ago that she would help him work through these issues. But what was the point? It wasn't like he hated the mutant kids, so there was no need to fix the issue if it wasn't a problem, right? It was frustrating to say the least.

Shinji kept silent the rest of the way home; talking to himself would only alert others to his issues and cause them to look down on him. They always did. And so he walked and walked and walked, until he reached the front door of Misato's apartment. With a knock, he signaled for his guardian to come calling.

"Welcome back, Shinji!" Misato cheerfully spouted as she slid the front door open and beckoned Shinji to come inside.

"I'm home." Shinji said sullenly as he crossed the threshold into the apartment.

"So what's for dinner?" Misato called out from a seated position she had taken at the central table where the two often shared their daily meals.

"We're going to have rice and fish again tonight, since you haven't gone to the grocery store in over three weeks," Shinji answered in a deadpan tone as he rummaged through the dirty kitchen space.

"You're no fun," Misato pouted.

"Well, if you want me to cook something else your going to have to go and buy the ingredients yourself."

"Is something wrong, Shinji?" Misato asked. "You seem like you're in a bad mood."

Shinji was silent as he began to assemble the necessary tools for the night's meal. He didn't want to deal with this. Every time he was a little moody or quiet, Misato instantly tried to play the role of mommy and dote on him like he was a little boy. He knew she meant well, but it was so irritating! She had her own issues to deal with, so why couldn't she just butt out of his!

"Is it about Asuka?" Misato delved further.

Shinji stopped dead in his tracks, dropping a bottle of salt to the floor below as he did. Oddly perceptive for a woman with a beer can in one hand, Misato had hit the nail on the head.

"So what if it is?" Shinji spoke angrily.

"I told you, we'll work through this together, Shinji. After dinner, let's sit down and we'll sort all this out, okay?"

"Fine, whatever..." came the muttered reply.

The rest of dinner was a strained and awkward affair whose conversation topics strayed little from the weather and Misato's alcoholism.

Later that night, Shinji and Misato sat together on the apartment's couch, neither wanting to take the first step to begin what would likely be a long, awkward, and tiring conversation. This silence lasted for nearly twenty minutes before Misato finally grasped at something to say that would most likely not lead Shinji to sprint out of the room in a hail of tears and pent-up anger.

"Listen, Shinji," Misato began, a tone of apprehension in her voice, "I can understand why you have a hard time getting along with the other kids. Back when Asuka and the rest of the people like her were first being born, your dad's generation had no idea how to deal with them either. Many, many, poor kids were abandoned by their parent's simply because they had no idea why there child had been born looking so strange.

"But we adapted. We at NERV began taking these kids when they had no where else to go. Through research, we were able to show the public that there was nothing to worry about. These new kids might look strange, but at the heart of the matter, they are still human beings like everyone else. While I know there are people out there who still insist on calling kids like Asuka, Mari, and Rei monsters and claim that they're a part of God's curse or something. But that doesn't mean you have to hate or fear them. Just think for a second how hard it must be to look different from every other person on Earth and how difficult it must be to cope with those feelings every single day of your life. If you just put yourself in their shoes for a moment I'm sure you'll see what I'm talking about."

Shinji was silent. Though he did not flee or show anger towards Misato's missive, there was still a lingering sense of uneasiness hovering over the both of them.

"It's not that." Shinji said flatly.

"Huh?" Misato responded. "Then what's wrong?"

"It's just weird, I used to know exactly what humans were and how the world worked. But when I moved here I don't know whats going on any more. It makes me sacred about what the future may bring, I don't want to be left behind..." Shinji cried.

"So that's it..." Misato pondered. "Shinji, no one is going to leave you behind. No matter how different the people around you look, they're still people, and as long as that is true, we'll still work things out as a species like we always have."

"Do you really think so?" Shinji mumbled.

"I'm sure of it – and besides, your good friends with Ayanami, right? If your able to reach out to her, I'm sure you can do the same with Asuka and Mari someday to. You just have to try a little harder and put yourself out there.

"Well that situation is a little different," Shinji muttered.

"And why is that~?" Misato edged closer, sensing some juicy gossip was about to spill forth.

"You're too close!" Shinji yelled."

"Fine, but spill it." Misato returned to her original position on the coach. "What's going on between you and bird-girl?"

"Nothing! We're just friends. I've been helping her experiments after school, that's all."

"Oh! So that's what you two have been doing after school. And thats good, because I was beginning to worry that you guys had been doing something steamy after hours or something."

Shinji began to blush. The very idea of being intimate with anyone, let alone a close friend like Rei, was so foreign to him as to be completely alien. That and a little bit frightening given that Rei's sharp talons and clawed wings could likely rip a human to shreds in a matter of minutes.

"Cut that out, its not very nice to speculate about people behind their backs like that." Shinji said in a huff.

"Yeah. Yeah. But whatever, you've shown you can get over how these kids looks, so I'm sure everything will work out in the end."

"I guess."

"Now lets go to bed. You've got school tommorow, and I need to sleep off all this booze I drank."

"You really should drink a little less, Misato" Shinji rolled his eyes.

"I'll stop drinking so much when you make nice with Asuka, deal?"

"Ugh! It's a deal..." If he was going to be forced to change, he may as well get something out of it as well.

That night Shinji lay restlessly in his bed as the droning music of his SDAT Player endlessly looped between two of his favorite tracks. There was much to think about these days. Aside from his own issues involving the other children and the odd mutations that had plagued humankind for the last fifteen years, there was also the matter of Ayanami. A few weeks ago, they had managed the impossible, and she had flown for roughly twenty seconds before landing safely on the ground below. It had been a joyous occasion and one that emotionally powerful enough for Shinji to overcome his aversion to human contact and embrace Rei in the heat of the moment.

But it was what came afterwords that bothered him. Since then, Rei had stopped meeting him on the roof for their triweekly experiments and had disappeared entirely from from everything besides class and mandatory training sessions at NERV HQ. It was a troubling state of affairs, and one that worried Shinji all the more so because there was very little he could do about it. He had, by choice, isolated him from most people, claiming they would only use him and then disappear in the end, but Rei was different. He had managed to approach her of his own accord and make friends without pretense or necessity. It was...nice, to say the least.

"I wonder if I should just go visit her and see what's wrong myself..." Shinji wondered.

He had been to Rei's apartment once before in the early days of his working for NERV, having been sent by Ritsuko to give Rei a new ID card, but instead ended up barging in on her in the shower. It had been his first time seeing a girl his own age in such a state of undress, but, more then that, it was mystifying how the human body could be bent into such a shape. Her wings, which were as grand as any of the larger birds of prey, were beautiful and colored a brilliant white that almost seemed to reflect the sliver of sunshine that had found its way between the tiny apartment's closed shutters. Her legs, feathered and ending in great talons in place of normal feet, conjured images of creatures he had only seen previously in games and comics. Combined with her pale skin and quiet demeanor, Rei was quite the young woman, one whose beauty he had only been able to admire for a second before she snatched the ID card from his hands and sent him packing without so much as a warning.

That Rei, so it seemed, had, until recently, disappeared as she began to open up, though she was still quite shy. But her sudden return to the days of stoic isolation worried Shinji more then anything connected to the Angels, his father, or much else for that matter.

"That's it, I'm going to check on her." Shinji resolved.

* * *

The next day, after school, Shinji stopped by Rei's apartment at the edge of the city. The apartment complex, which was old and part of a district scheduled for demolition sometime in the near future, was made up mostly of concrete structures erected in the early days of Tokyo-3's construction. It was not a pleasant place, let alone one where a teenage girl should be living by herself.

"Hello, is anyone home?" Shinji said as he knocked upon the door.

"Yes. I will let you in." Rei responded from the other side.

As the door slowly creaked open, Shinji beheld a bird-girl in disrepair. Her normally well pruned feathers were overgrown and ruffled, and her talons long and in need of sharpening. On top of all this, large circles ringed her eyes, a sign that she had not slept in many days.

"Ayanami...are you all right? You look terrible."

"I am fine," replied Rei. "I've just been short of sleep."

"I can tell," returned a worried Shinji.

"Is this the only reason you have come to visit?"

"Um, no..." Shinji paused, awkwardly grasping at what just to say in such a situation." I'm worried about you, Ayanami. Ever since the last flight experiment, you've been avoiding everyone."

"I've just been busy."

"You're making excuses."

"Please..." Shinji said as he took Rei by the wing. "I want to help you."

Rei's eyes began to tear over; it had been so long since anyone had paid her such attention. True, there had been days when the commander had showed small kindnesses to her or rescued her from a sticky situation, but he had never shown her real concern beyond when he had confused her for ever so brief a moment with someone else. This was different, and a bit scary.

"I can't tell you everything... because I don't really understand it all myself." She sniffled.

"Just promise me you won't keep this stuff to yourself like this again, okay?" Shinji smiled.

"Okay."

"Good, and one more thing," Shinji continued.

"Yes?" replied a puzzled Rei.

"You should really go take a shower, you sort of stink."

Raising her free claw, Rei slid it gently across the back of Shinji's back, a painful reminder that it was never a good idea to say such things to a girl.

"Hey! What was that for?!"

"You were being rude."

Shinji sighed. No matter how much she seemed to change, Rei was still Rei.

* * *

In the depths of the GeoFront lay knowledge never meant for human eyes and ears, most of it firmly stored in the base's research and development branch where it was currently being used to prep the next generation of Evangelion. But that sort of knowledge was not what concerned Ritsuko Akagi, it was something new and never before witnessed in the history of mankind that lay on her mind. She had spent days, some with her loyal assistant and admirer Maya and some without, going over the footage of the battle against the latest Angel and carefully picking apart the events that had led Evangelion Unit-00 to become bathed in radiant light, like an angel straight out of myth.

Frame by frame she went, isolating peculiar images and synching them with the logs of the Magi System's data on the battle. Slowly but surely, she was beginning to piece together a picture of what truly happened that day.

"So, Unit-00's transformation began more or less when that second AT Field appeared," stated Ritsuko. "Given what we know about the Field as a whole, they represent the physical boundaries between one being and another – it just so happens that the AT Field of an Eva is strong enough to be used as a weapon," Ritsuko clarified plainly for Maya, who had been sitting behind her in awe of the odd science involved in the creation of the weapons she had become used to seeing every day.

"But doesn't that mean that the Eva should only have a single AT Field?" Maya asked.

"You are correct," replied Ritsuko. "All research conducted thus far shows that any creature, whether Eva or Angel, can only produce a singe AT Field at any given time. True, some Angels have shown the ability to segment their Field into a number of smaller barriers, but is merely a transformation of a singular barrier into many, rather the generation of an entirely new one."

"So where did the second one come from?" asked a confused Maya.

"The only answer that makes any sense is that it originates from the pilot." Ritsuko mused as the video she had been scouring finally ended.

"But I thought you said only Eva and Angels could produce AT Fields?"

"That's what I thought too, but we're not talking about normal human beings here, Maya. On two occasions we've seen a second AT Field manifest from within an Eva in a moment of dire circumstance. And on both of those occasions, the Eva was being piloted by one of the mutant children. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

Maya nearly fell from her seat in shock, the implications of such a statement were staggering. "Are you saying that the pilots have some connection to the Angels?" Maya exclaimed as she gathered herself.

"Not only that," began Ritsuko, "but to the Eva and Second Impact as well. These sort of mutations only began to show up after the events of fifteen years ago. I firmly believe that this is no coincidence."

Ritsuko was immensely sure of herself. She had been piecing together scraps that had been thrown to her from above for months on end, and, only now, was it beginning to all come together. The picture it painted was one of a new vista of human experience unlike anything ever seen before in the history of life on planet Earth. And it all began fifteen years ago, when a simple research trip changed the course of human history forever.

"Wait, I thought we already knew that? I remember years ago that the media was reporting that the mutations had all been caused by the radioactive fallout caused by Second Impact."

"That report came directly from NERV; I'm sure my mother even had a hand in its concoction. And like a lot of things that come out of this place, it was more of a half-truth meant to placate the public and keep what we were doing a secret."

Maya stared at Ritsuko for a long time; there was so much she didn't know about the place she worked and about all the people around her. It was frustrating, but as long as Ritsuko was being truthful to her, everything would be fine.

"...What _is_ the truth then?"

"The mutations aren't genetic at all. Rather, it's a shift in the child's waveform, or their soul if you will. Something fifteen years ago brought about a change in the very fabric of human existence, and once we figure out what that something is, we will have the root of everything."

"To have figured all that out on your own... you're amazing, senpai!" exclaimed an awestruck Maya.

"Don't flatter me," replied Ritsuko, "you've been a big help in putting all this together as well. And, like I promised last time, I owe you drinks and dinner, okay?"

"Okay..." Maya blushed. "But how does this all related to Unit-00's transformation during the last battle?"

"Well, I'm fairly sure that was a result of the same process that gave us the mutant children – a sudden mutation on a metaphysical level that brought about physical changes in the organism."

"Do you think Ayanami caused all that to happen?"

"I wouldn't say I'm 100% sure on the matter, but I have a hunch that Rei, and Mari before her during the battle with the Sixth Angel, are responsible for the mysterious AT Fields and Unit-00's transformation. But it's late, you should go home and get some rest – you never know when another Angel may show up."

"Are you sure you won't any more help, senpai?"

"I'll be fine, just get going all ready." Ritsuko said with a smile.

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Maya left without further complaint. She had been overjoyed when Ritsuko had asked her to help with the seemingly endless research she had been conducting since the reclamation of the Fourth Angel's core, and it was satisfying to see it all finally come to a head, even if she didn't quite understand everything Ritsuko had put forth. In all, it was simply nice to be able to spend time with someone very important to her outside of work.

Meanwhile, back in the lab, Ritsuko resumed poring over documents and files related to Second Impact, hoping that somewhere among the backlogs and paperwork she could find the missing link that connected the mutations, Angels, and everything NERV had done in the past decade and a half.

* * *

Early the next morning, a small shadow sprung into existence as the sun rose and showered Tokyo-3 with its life-giving rays. The shadow, no bigger then a manhole, slid across the ground, past people and animals whose minds passed it off as yet another silhouette cast by the sun's light. And without resistance it began to absorb small objects – dirt, plants, and anything else that happened to lay in its path. Yet no one noticed. Consumed by their daily routine, the people of the city were too busy to pay attention to the advancing doom that crept among them.

By mid-morning, the shadow had grown. Now big enough to consume a person whole, it began to consume the living, grasping at small animals and birds as it continued to slither towards an unknown destination. Then, however, it could no longer elude the watchful eyes of those astute enough to realize that something was amiss. These reports quickly filtered into the media and were soon picked up by those at NERV, who almost immediately set about to determine the origin of the mysterious entity plaguing the city.

"Can we get a reading on that thing?" Misato calmly questioned.

"All signs point to Blood Type Orange, we don't know one way or another if it's an Angel." Aoba answered promptly.

"Keep at it – if this thing is dangerous, we should nip it in the bud before it causes a major incident."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Such was the futility of dealing with Angels; humanity was forever on the defensive against the strange beasts. Forced to wage a reactive war only after a part of the city had been reduced to rubble and dozens of lives lost, it was a struggle that was far from popular with the public and had caused something of a mass exodus as of late as the seemingly endless battles took their toll on the general psyche of all those living within the confines of Tokyo-3.

"Should we dispatch the Evas, Captain?"

"No, there will be no need for that. Besides, before this thing shows us what it really looks like, we'll be sitting ducks out there. It's probably best to order an evacuation and see what turns up later."

"Roger, ordering a citywide evacuation order. All residents are to leave the city as soon as possible."

"That should buy us a little bit of time," Misato thought to herself.

Outside, the shadow had begun to grow ever larger, now nearly a hundred feet in width and swallowing cars and small buildings in its wake. If this continued, it would only be a matter of time before the entire city was sucked into the gaping abyss.

"Status report!" Misato yelled.

"Still no word from the Magi System, it seems this thing has them stumped." Aoba recalled.

"Damn it..." Misato growled. "What are our options?"

"I don't think we have any, Captain, aside from waiting for it to make the first move."

"Can we organize some kind of attack? You know, dump a few bombs into the shadow and see if that doesn't solve the problem."

"I imagine we could, the city's empty. It's really up to you, Captain."

"All right, send out Unit-01 armed with the most powerful explosives we've got short of an N2 Mine. That should show that thing what we're made of."

"Roger, ma'am. Unit-01 will be refitted for combat and deployed as soon as possible."

"Good."

Whatever this shadow was, it was proving to be far more annoying then any of the Angels that had previous assaulted the city. Despite their immense size and power, they were all creatures with clearly defined physical bodies that could be analyzed, their weak point discerned, then dealt with as quickly as possible. This thing, however, seemed to fly in the face of everything they knew about the enemy. Like it was mocking them in its own special way.

By the early afternoon, the shadow had grown to several hundred feet across and had began consuming skyscrapers and apartment complexes whole. If not destroyed soon, the entire city would be at risk, and with it, the staff and secrets of the GeoFront. The solution? A heavily armed Unit-01, currently speeding to the surface in one of NERV's many immense elevators. Armed to the teeth with every sort of bomb, mine, and incendiary the engineering department could find, its mission was simple – bombard the shadow with its explosive payload and hope to the heavens that it would be enough to destroy the strange creature.

"I've reached the surface, Misato," radioed Shinji.

"Good, now approach the shadow with caution. Stay a few hundred meters away from it and throw all those explosives into it. With any luck, that should be enough to destroy it for good."

"All right. See you soon, Misato."

"See you soon, Shinji."

The Eva carefully walked towards its target, making sure not to trip, stumble, or do anything else that may have set off the several tons of explosives currently affixed to its back. It was only a matter of time before Shinji came upon the shadow in question, an immense black ooze that now covered the ground as far as his eyes could see. As it seethed and ebbed, Shinji gagged, so disgusted was he by the creature's strange movement.

"Here goes nothing!" Shinji yelled as he tossed his explosives into the shadow.

The bombs flew through the air in an arc and came to rest upon the shadow's surface, where they were quickly absorbed along with an office building and three cars that had been parked outside. It was only a few moments later that all of the explosives went off at once, causing an immense and terrifying scream to echo from within the shadow's inky maw.

However, what the explosives had failed to do was destroy the shadow, which seemed to grow angry as it began to ripple like a the ocean on a stormy day. Its mass moving in waves as a strange object, a giant black sphere crisscrossed with white lines, emerged from within the shadow and began to hover in place above the inky abyss that had given birth to it.

"The Magi have reached a conclusion. Blood Type Blue, that's an Angel!" Aoba radioed.

"Really?" Shinji questioned.

"It seems so. But this is good for us. That sphere is likely the Angel's main body. We'll send you a gun, so use it to take that thing out!"

From within one of the massive structures dotting Tokyo-3's surface emerged a closeted space meant for the transport of the immense artillery manufactured exclusively for use by the Evangelion. In the current moment, a Eva-scale rifle had been sped to Unit-01's position in response to the shadow's designation as the 9th Angel.

Taking the weapon from its container, Shinji began to fire a steady stream of bullets at the sphere – bothering the Angel even less then a small fly may a blue whale.

"It's not working, Misato!" Shinji panicked.

The put all of NERV in a rough spot. Tactics that had been useful against virtually every other Angel had failed miserably, and sending in more Eva would just compound the problem. It was frustrating, but the best answer to the issue was likely to order a retreat and let Ritsuko and the rest of the science department have a look at the matter.

"Come on back. We're not going to accomplish anything leaving you standing out there with nothing to do."

Turning about-face to return to the GeoFront via a nearby elevator, Shinji's own lack of awareness prevented him from seeing that the shadow had been expanding while he hadn't been paying attention and now threatened to consume Unit 01's left leg.

"Oh god..." were the only words that came to mind as the shadow, like a pit full of quick-acting tar, began to swallow the mechanical behemoth whole, slowly engulfing the Eva's immense frame within its seemingly endless confines.

"SHINJI! CAN YOU HEAR ME, SHINJI?! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RESPOND..." Misato shouted through the radio, accompanied by a chorus of muffled tears and immense sorrow.

* * *

"So what's happened to Shinji, Ritsuko?" Misato questioned as she wiped the last of the tears from her face with the sleeve of her jacket.

"It's very likely he's stuck in whatever pocket dimension the Angel's shadow is connected to. There is no way in there without passing through the shadow itself, and it's very likely there is no way out either," Ritsuko spoke, a tone of unease in her voice.

Ritsuko had been called, as was protocol for these types of things, to analyze the date that had flowed through the Magi System concerning the Angel. Her final report on the matter was bleak, to say the least.

"So how do we get him out of there?"

"We don't."

"Come again...?" Misato said angrily.

"I've got orders from the Commander that the retrieval of the Eva is all that matters in this operation from now on. Whether Shinji is alive or dead is of no concern to us anymore."

Blinded with rage, Misato grabbed Ritsuko by the collar of her jacket and stared violently into her eyes.

"As long as I'm in charge of this operation, we're going to do everything on our power to get Shinji back home. Do you understand, Ri-tsu-ko?"

"Of course, _Captain_ Katsuragi. But don't shoot the messenger, I'm just relaying what the Commander handed down to us. If you really want to try and rescue the kid, it's got nothing to do with me. You're just going to have to do it before the deadline."

Misato tilted her head in confusion, letting go of Ritsuko as she did.

"What deadline?"

"At best, the Eva's life support system will hold out for twenty hours before it shuts down and our pilot dies. That and the commander seems rather keen on unloading a truck full of N2 mines into that shadow and killing it as soon as possible."

Today was just not Misato's day.

"That bastard, what's so important about that stupid machine that he'd put its safety above that to his own son!?" Misato seethed with rage. "And how long do we have before then?"

"About the same amount of time. Either way, you need to get to work Misato."

"Listen everyone, from now on, this is a rescue operation. Our primary objective is to retrieve Evangelion Unit-01 and it's pilot by any means necessary. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the bridge operators said in unison.

* * *

The world within the Ninth Angel's shadow was one with neither light nor life. An endless void in which nothing existed save for the Eva and its pilot. It was a quiet and lonely place that left Shinji alone with his thoughts, just as the normal world seemed to do most nights. Here, unlike the times he had spent alone in his room, staring at the ceiling, someone seemed to be watching him and picking away at the inner workings of his mind with a fine-toothed comb, gleaning his secrets for some unknown and possibly sinister purpose.

"Who's there!?" Shinji demanded of the darkness around him.

The darkness refused to respond, only echoing back his sentiment in a ghastly tone.

"Please...answer me, anyone, answer me..."

Cradled safely within the womb-like cockpit of of Evangelion Unit-01, Shinji began to drift off. There was little he could do about this, or about anything else in his life for that matter. He was but a child in a world run by adults who had abused him and the other children for their own gain. That was why he was in this mess and why Ayanami was screwed up as she was. It was all their fault...! It just had to be.

"Is it really?" a voice answered from seemingly nowhere. "Are you truly sure of that?"

His psyche violated by an unknown force, Shinji writhed and rolled about Eva 01's cockpit as he attempted to ward off the mental invasion. But the invader, wanting nothing to do with his feeble resistance, only fought harder in response. His mind would soon be laid wide open for the mysterious force to see and probe. Shinji shivered in fear – he had always kept a wall between himself and others, aside from a rare few such as Misato and Rei, but to be so open, so naked, brought more fear to him then anything he had done thus far as a pilot for and agent of NERV.

"What do you want?!" Shinji screamed once more.

The invading darkness in turn did not answer, but, with his defenses stripped away and made useless, plunged Shinji's mind into the depths of the abyss from which it had came.

Shinji's mind reeled as it fell into the bottomless pit of darkness; had it a mouth, it would have screamed. And it fell further and further through the abyss, only coming to a metaphysical stop on the other side in a closed world resembling the train car that Shinji rode so very often on his journey from one side of the city to the other. However, unlike its counterpart in the real world, there were no other passengers on the train save for a little boy in a striped shirt who sat directly across from him. His face obscured by shadows, the child's appearance was unnerving and odd.

"Welcome" The child spoke.

"Who are you?" Shinji questioned, more confused then afraid.

"That's the second time you've asked that."

"I only ask because I don't know! If I don't ask I won't ever know..."

"Human are inquisitive creatures by nature, always pushing further and further with what they wish to "know."

"So?"

"Well, what would happen if one day you pushed so far that you discovered something that you wish you didn't wish to know. Something that changed your worldview forever?"

Shinji fell silent; this child was staring deep into his psyche, grasping at the root of his recent issues.

"The whole of the human race has come to that point recently, you know."

"What are you talking about?"

"The mutant children. Before they, the brethren of both Heaven and earth, arrived, the human race was a homogeneous whole separated only by minor physical differences and manmade constructs. But now, there are real divisions between the new humanity and the old. Divisions that will only serve to widen the distance between humans."

"What does that have to do with me!?"

"You fear them too."

"That's not true, Ayanami and I..."

"She's special though; that is what you're thinking. You feel good when you're around her, and she reminds you of a time long ago when you were safe and happy. The others still frighten you."

"Don't you think I know that?"

"Of course you do. But do you know why?"

"Yes...I mean I think I do. They're strange, human beings shouldn't be made of jelly or have a tail or anything like that. It's not normal.

"That is the problem, sometime very soon it may _become_ normal. People will fight it and declare it wrong, just as you have, but this will not impede evolution. So really, what reason have you to be afraid of the natural order of things?"

"I don't want to be left behind and alone, like I always am..." Shinji mumbled.

"But now it wouldn't just be your friends or the adults around you that left you alone..."

"It would be everyone. I'd have nowhere to go!"

"And it would be your own fault."

"How can I stop it, though...?"

"Ah, _can_ you? That is for humanity as a whole to decide."

It was then that the reality of the train car and the child in the striped shirt began to fade and return to the darkness from which it was spawned. After a great feeling of pain as his consciousness returned to whence it had came, Shinji found himself back in the cockpit of Unit-01, his only companion the beeping of the indicator on his plugsuit's wrist that the Eva's life support system would soon fail and that he would die.

* * *

"Well Misato, any moment now the Eva will lose power and Shinji will kick the bucket," Ritsuko calmly explained. "What do you propose we do?"

"I don't know..."

Misato was at a loss for words; for the last twenty hours she had worked tirelessly to try and rescue Shinji from the Ninth Angel's clutches. But, in the end, all they had managed to do was retrieve the umbilical cord that supplied the mechanical giant with power. All logic seemed to point to letting the Commander have his way and bomb the shadow into oblivion.

"Relay a message to the Commander – he has my OK to destroy the Angel."

"Are you absolutely sure, Captain?" Maya asked.

"Yes, we've exhausted all other options. The only path remaining is to destroy the enemy and end this once and for all."

"Roger, ma'am. Sending the OK to Commander Ikari."

The bridge operator had spoke to soon, for as she picked up the phone that connected the bridge to Gendou Ikari's office, the Magi System's graphs that had been monitoring Shinji's vital signs suddenly sprung back to life.

"What the heck is that?" Misato demanded. "Ritsuko, explanation!"

"The Eva is moving on its own again, it might even be Berserker!" Ritsuko said in a panicked tone.

Outside, the sphere that had emerged from the Angel's inky depths began to roil and seethe, like a marble caught on an uneven surface. Another cry, like that which had been heard when the shadow was exposed to so many explosives, echoed through the air as if the Angel was in pain. It wasn't long for the source of the pain to be found, for a single, near-perfect cut appeared on the surface as if made from within the sphere, rending the creature in twain and spraying blood through the air. Within the cascade of crimson, Unit-01 emerged from the innards of the wounded sphere, roaring as it had during the battle against the Third Angel and bearing an intense sense of rage behind its beastly mannerisms.

Crew stationed at the bridge, having been watching the event live via video feed, recoiled in horror at the sight. The Eva were supposed to be weapons built by man to fight the Angels, and nothing more. But again and again they had found that notion proven wrong, leaving those not privy to NERV's secrets to wonder just what they were dealing with.

"Ritsuko..." Misato quivered as she watched the horror unfolding before her.

"Yes?" She answered.

"What is an Eva?"

Ritsuko lay silent. She knew more then Misato could ever imagine on the topic of the Eva and could answer that simple question in any number of ways. But, instead, she kept silent. There was no reason Misato needed to know such things.

"Whatever...Let's get a cleanup crew out there to recover Shinji and the Eva and clean up that bloody mess."

Ritsuko let out a sigh of relief; she had once more dodged the bullet, but her luck, she imagined, would soon run out. Sooner or later, the truth would come out and many she considered to be her friends would likely abandon her in the process. It was all the better reason to finish her research on the connections between Second Impact and everything that came afterwords, and to out the old men of SEELE and the Commander's true intentions before they could make a move against her.

"You okay, Ritsuko?" Misato wondered aloud.

"Yes, I've just had a lot on my mind lately."

"Like that's anything new." Misato chuckled.

* * *

_SEELE's chamber, unknown location_

The monoliths that normally projected the images of the council's members to onlookers had been set to "Sound Only", save for that of Representative Keel, the council's _de facto_ leader. There would be no need for the members of SEELE to see one another during this discussion; rather, all that mattered was the resolution of a problem that had been plaguing the organization for some time now – the problem of Human Instrumentality, and of a certain man who stood firmly in its path.

"Gentlemen," Keel began, hands clasped on the desk in front of him, "as I am sure you are all aware, the recent loss of the embryo of the First Angel has set back our plans greatly. Without it, there is no way in which we will be able to bring about Instrumentality and guide humanity down the proper evolutionary path" Keel's voice carried a solemn, yet severe tone.

"And what do you plan to do about this, Keel?" one member demanded.

"We will send that Child to recover what is ours," Keel spoke in stoic retort.

"Very well. As long as you can produce results, we of the council have no reason to question your judgment and leadership. But what of Gendou Ikari? He has been moving in the shadows for quite some time. What is he planning?" Another member spoke.

"I do not know. But I assure you that he will be dealt with."

Satisfied with Keel's plan, the rest of the SEELE monoliths went blank, leaving the chairman alone in a dark room.

"So it is finally my time to stand upon the stage?" A voice, like that of a young man, echoed from the darkness.

* * *

NEXT EPISODE

Five years ago, NERV HQ played host to dozens of mutant children. Safely guiding them towards adulthood while simultaneously using them as test subjects, probing the depths of the unknown in an attempt to shed light on mankind's mist-shrouded future. Among these children, one stood out, a young feline girl who had attached herself to Dr. Ritsuko Akagi.

Forced to interact with another human being, Ritsuko discovers many truths that shake the foundation of her very soul. How has this affected Ritsuko in the present? And what does this all have to do with the current crisis? Well you'll all find out next time in "Weaving a Tale: The Birth of Tomorrow"

And as always, there will be lots of fanservice!


	10. Weaving a tale: Yesterday's Tomorrow

The atmosphere at NERV HQ had been one of quiet paranoia. The battles with the last few Angels had ended in bizarre and terrifying ways that had rattled the minds of everyone not privy to the secrets that formed the backbone of NERV's reason for existence and a plot that spanned decades, if not centuries. It was among this awkward peace that Ritsuko Akagi, one of the lucky few who knew the truth of the matter, sat peacefully in the HQ's lounge, sipping a steaming cup of coffee and going over some of the copious notes she had gleaned from long hours searching NERV's archives and studying the mutant children.

The papers strewn across the lounge's table consisted mostly of data and charts related the Eva pilots' vital signs, waveforms, and psycho graphs, all data that would be nothing more then a seemingly random set of numbers and graphs to those not versed in at least three different fields of scientific study. And even Ritsuko, whose experience with esoteric sciences was second only to that of her mother, was frustrated by it all. The conflicting information and reports only served to make sorting through all of it a hassle that was almost as nerve-wracking as working with the pilots.

With a loud sigh, Ritsuko took another drink from the cat-adorned mug she always used. The secrets of the universe just didn't want to comply today, it seemed. For every step forward she took, three things she had thought to be set in stone were suddenly struck down as irrelevant. Much of what the public had been told, that Second Impact was caused by a meteor and the the radioactive fallout kicked up by the event caused the mutations, was an outright lie put together by NERV's PR department, something cooked up to keep the public placated and reduce the fear and hate-mongering that had surrounded the mutant children. Finding the truth of the matter within this sea of propaganda and lies was a herculean task, to be sure.

Her mind firmly wrapped in a barricade of paperwork and sheer frustration, Ritsuko was taken by surprise when a familiar voice reached her ears.

"Hey, Ritsuko, what are you doing over there?"

Misato had entered the room somewhere between the time Ritsuko had dove into a report concerning the time after birth in which Second Impact-related mutant qualities first appear in human beings and the point at which she had thrown the same report to the ground for being completely useless to her cause.

"I _was_ trying to sort through all this data. Right now I'm just enjoying this bitter lukewarm water that passes for coffee around here."

Sighing once more, Ritsuko's words were laden heavily with sarcasm, a regular feature of any interaction for her.

Misato had begun to leaf through some of the reports herself, looking over each with a blank stare and confused snarl.

"What is all this, Ritsuko?" Misato said as she carefully eyes a set of photographs taken of mutant children.

"This is a decade's worth of research concerning the mutant kids. Charts, graphs, reports, it's all here, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to pick apart what's true and what NERV just made up for the sake of covering their own butts."

"What would they have to hide?" Misato questioned as she put the report in question down and took a seat beside her college friend.

"For example, do you remember all the weird things that have happened concerning the last two Angels? No one at NERV knows anything about what caused all that or what an Angel actually is, let alone why we have a bunch of kids who look like animals running around. The level of secrecy around here is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. And because of all that, I just want to know what the truth of the matter is, that's all."

Even Misato knew that Ritsuko was treading on dangerous ground and gave the senior scientist a stern look that projected such. She had seen what those behind NERV had been capable of and had lived through Second Impact firsthand. NERV was no mere military installation, she knew that for sure. But just how far the truth ran was an entire matter entirely.

"Are you sure it's safe to be talking about this stuff in public like this?" Misato whispered.

"I think that it's perfectly safe, simply because NERV needs me. No one else knows the Magi System like I do, so it's not like they can just _kill_ me or something like that."

"That's not very reassuring, you know." Misato grumbled.

"Oh, I know. But it is the truth."

"Just don't come to me when someone wants your head on a pike." Misato mused.

"Well, if someone does want me dead, they're going to have to wait a few hours, since I have some catching up to do with an old friend."

Ritusko began to gather up the various papers and related items and slipped them into a heavy file folder that was already stuffed to the brim with various research-related documents.

"Ohhhhhhh...does Ritsuko have a date for once~?" Misato teased.

"No, I'm simply going to meet with an old friend of mine over lunch. And it's not like you have any room to talk; the only men you talk to on a regular basis are Kaji and Shinji."

Misato grumbled. Her work had taken away any chance to sustain any real relationships, leaving her just as Ritsuko had insinuated – fretting over her old college boyfriend and living with a whiny teenager who may as well been her bratty younger brother.

"So who is this person anyway? It's not like you have a ton of friends or anything." Misato's words were as much a question as a retort to her friend's obvious jab at her own lack of a social life.

"Do you have a time for a story? Because that is what it's going to take to answer your question," Ritsuko said as she stuffed the last of her documents into a far from willing folder.

"I have all the time in the world, Ritsuko."

"Then follow me to my office and we'll talk."

"So, spill it. I want to know everything about this friend of yours." Misato sat on an old lab stool that Ritsuko had kept in her office for the purpose of examining patients and having something humiliating for her less than favored individuals to sit on.

"Well, she was someone I met a few years after I started working here, back when NERV was still taking in mutant kids on a regular basis," Ritsuko spoke from her usual spot at her desk.

"Oh I remember that!" Misato chimed. "I had just arrived in Germany when they were beginning to phase out that program. I think that Asuka and Mari were among the last batch of kids they brought to the German Branch before it shut down for some reason."

"Officially," Ritsuko explained, "it was shut down because of the public's changing perception of the children as well as for budget reasons. But I'm fairly sure it was more because that they had finally found enough pilots for the Eva."

"The Eva?" Misato questioned.

"The stated goal of the program was to provide care and shelter for abandoned and mistreated mutant children. But unofficially, those kids were also put through a rigorous testing program for the sake of finding the origin and nature of the mutations. Part of that testing..."

Ritsuko took a long breath before continuing her speech. Even for someone like her, who rarely let her moral compass interfere with her research and work, it was a bit much.

"Those kids were used as test pilots for the Eva. After a normal human died in 2004 during a test run, they shifted towards using the mutant kids as test pilots. For whatever reason, it seemed to work, as none of them had any real physical problems with the Eva."

"That's terrible!" Misato yelled.

"Is it? We're currently using 14 year old kids to fight a war... I don't think we're in any position to talk about what's right or wrong."

Misato always did hate it when Ritsuko was right about this sort of thing and promptly silenced any further objections. War demanded sacrifice, and in the battle against the Angels, the primary casualty thus far had been the pilots' adolescence.

"But yes, for a while I was saddled with taking care of one of those kids. It was a harrowing experience for quite some time, but we ended up as pretty good friends."

"You were taking care of a kid?!" Misato tried with all her strength to keep herself from bursting into a fit of laughter. She simply could not see Ritsuko as anything else but the cold and logical type. She also couldn't picture her as having friends at all.

Ritsuko merely dismissed her friend's outburst with a stoic roll of her eyes and continued with her story unfazed.

"Her name was Nana and she was a young girl with a cat-type mutation."

"A cat..." Misato grinned from ear to ear. "That explains everything!"

"Please stop that. I'm trying to tell a story here," Ritsuko retorted.

"Fine. Fine. Go on."

"It was about five years ago..."

* * *

NERV of five years ago was a far different place; free of the constant strife that would plague the organization several years in the future, various research and development projects that spanned every field of science were carried out on a daily basis. A bastion of progress in a world devastated by Second Impact, NERV led the way of carrying the battered human race slowly forward into the future.

Of utmost concern to NERV, and to the world at large, were the mutant children who had been born in the wake of Second Impact. In the early days of after the incident, these mysterious children were often abandon, abused, and generally mistreated by their parents and by those around them who had no way of knowing the how and why of their existence. Not sure what to do, many turned to NERV and other world leaders for a solution. Enacted in around 2004 or 2005, NERV's response was to implement a combined research and adoption program that would take in displaced mutant children, while at the same time studying their strange existence in an attempt to calm the public panic regarding them.

Children adopted into the program were given room, food, clothing, and an education within Tokyo-3's NERV-run school system – all that was expected of them in return was to be well behaved and submit to limited testing meant both to track their physical and mental development and to further the cause of trying to understand the nature of their origin. In the years between 2004 and 2010, nearly a thousand children would come through NERV's three main branches – Japan, Germany, and America – and bring with them the seeds of great leaps forward in understanding the mutations. It was released to the public that the mutations were caused by radiation kicked into the atmosphere by Second Impact. Though not the full truth, it and other information found via research related to the program gradually lessened the fear of the children to such an extent that a good number of them were adopted or returned to their parents.

It was in the last days of the program that a overly energetic girl with a cat-type mutation was dropped off at NERV HQ.

"Hey, Ritsu!" One of NERV's female techies called from just outside the young scientist's door. Surrounded by mutant children of various aquatic varieties, it was a silly sight to behold.

"What is it?" Ritsuko responded from behind her barely open office door.

"I'm taking these kids to the beach but one of them is refusing to go, would you mind looking after her for a while?"

"And why would you ask me to do that?"

"Well... normally, I wouldn't. But everyone else is busy and I thought you two would get along."

Ritsuko sighed. She was a scientist, not a babysitter. There was no real reason for her to take on some child for the afternoon just because her keeper didn't want to deal with her refusal to go on a field trip.

"And she's a caaaaaat! I know how much you like those."

"A cat?" Ritusko said, her interest piqued.

"She's a cat-type mutant, and she refused to go swimming, so could you please watch her for the afternoon?"

"Fine. But you owe me." Ritsuko sighed.

"Right, right...Thanks, Ritsu. You're the best."

The tech left with her gaggle of children, heading for the coast and a chance from them to stretch their legs (or other appendages) in a habitat befitting their strange body types. Behind her trailed a small girl with the ears and tail of a cat. The child Ritsuko had been charged with looking after, she quietly sneaked her way into Ritsuko's office nearly unnoticed.

* * *

"Hello?" The small girl voiced from just in front of her babysitter for the afternoon.

Ritsuko turned in her chair to the sight of a girl roughly four and a half feet tall wearing a simple dress, her black hair worn long, and, most noticeably of all, cat-like ears sticking out of the top of her head and a tail that swayed from side to side behind her.

"I imagine you're the one I'm supposed to be taking care of today?" Ritsuko said, amused.

The small girl nodded in silence, too nervous to speak around someone new just yet.

"Well then, take a seat over there and I'll get to you in a minute."

As per Ritsuko's instructions, the young girl sat down and twiddled her thumbs as she waited for Ritsuko to finish her work.

"You're an interesting kid, you know that?" Ritsuko voiced as she went over a cryptic data set on her laptop.

"Why is that?" the small girl questioned, her head cocked to the side in confusion.

"Cat mutations are fairly rare in relation to how common the animal they resemble is. I've actually seen more mermaid-like kids come through here then cats, which is a little sad, since it's far easier to take care of a cat then a would be siren. Trust me, I know."

"Do you have cats at home?"

"I have two; they're both good kids, but they can be little brats from time to time."

Ritsuko laughed. It had been a long since anyone had asked her about her cats. Putting aside her work for a moment, she turned to the small cat girl and addressed her directly for the first time.

"But why don't you tell me about yourself, since we're being forced to hang around together and all."

Ritsuko did her best to smile, but it came across more awkward then sincere, not that a small child would care.

"My name is Nana and, um, I like being outside and chasing things..." Nana spoke nervously.

"Well then, it's good to meet you, Nana. I'm Ritsuko and... well, I really don't have many hobbies, but I work here at NERV as a research scientist."

Ritsuko grimaced a bit as she grasped, and failed, to think of anything that she did in her free time. But her work had become her life. Every morning she came to work early, and in the evenings she always left late – the closest she had to real friends, besides her cats, all worked at NERV as well. With no hobbies or social life to speak of, it made her a bit depressed to think about it. But there would be time for sulking later.

"That's neat," Nana spoke, a bit more relaxed then before. "I'm here because my parents didn't know what to do with me."

"While unfortunate, that is understandable. Many of the parents of kids like you have no idea how to treat or raise their new child. You're lucky that they decided to do the right thing and take you here rather then abandoning you altogether."

Nana was quiet for her moment; her tail had stopped swishing from side to side. It was a very sad thought that other moms and dads had given up on their kids entirely – and had Nana been unlucky, that could have been her as well.

"...My mom and dad would never do that." She said quietly.

"Of course, I'm sure they're great parents." Ritsuko said with another awkward smile.

Nana returned the smile with one of her own, one that revealed her cat-like teeth.

"Well isn't that interesting." Ritsuko mused.

"What is?"

"You have a dental structure somewhere between a cat and a human... it's quite fascinating."

Nana was confused once more. She really didn't understand Ritsuko's interest in the gritty details of her mutation.

"How about this," Ritsuko spoke. "If you let me run a few tests on you, we'll do anything you want afterwords. How does that sound?"

"It won't hurt... will it?" Nana asked as her ears flattened and her tail began to sway nervously.

"Of course not. It won't be anything more then you'd go through at a normal checkup."

"Oh good!" Nana perked up. "But if I say yes, I want to go to the park."

"Of course."

Withdrawing some simple medical supplies from several rooms over, Ritsuko soon returned for the impromptu checkup. Sitting down with a note pad in hand, she was more then ready to carry out an investigation in the name of science.

"First, I want you to open your mouth and stick out your tongue."

"Ok..."

Nana did as she was told and stuck out her pink tongue with a long "Ahhhhhh" to accompany the act. Ritsuko in turn ran a tongue depressor across her tongue, collecting a saliva sample from her upon the completion of the act.

"What was that for?" Nana asked, crossing her arms and wearing an apprehensive look on her face.

"The reasons for this were two fold, the first being I wanted to collect a sample for DNA testing later and the second being that I wished to know if your tongue had the sandpaper-like hooks that genuine cats possess, just to see how deep your mutation goes.

"Well, do I?" Nana asked excitedly. She didn't know much about herself and anything that she could proudly tell others was well worth knowing.

"You actually do, which is interesting, and that brings me to the next test. Please sit still for a moment."

"Ok!" Nana had cheered up some knowing that all of this might be to her benefit beyond allowing her play time in the near future.

Standing for a moment, Ritsuko began to pet the catgirl on the head gently. After few seconds, Nana began to purr as her ears turned down and her tail began to wag back and forth happily.

"Well then."

"What is it?" Nana asked between purrs.

"I imagine this means you have the capability to purr much like a cat can. While not technically useful for anything, it is cute."

Nana recoiled in embarrassment, blushing as she batted Ritsuko's hand away from her hand.

"There's no reason to huff about it. It's simply another thing that makes you who you are." Her speech bland and matter of fact, Ritsuko nevertheless had a point.

"I guess." Nana pouted. "What are you going to do next, anyway?"

"I imagine that is all for now. I'll be able to tell a lot more after studying your DNA later."

"Does that mean you'll take me to the park now!?" Nana asked excitedly, ready to leap from her seat and out the door at a moment's notice.

"Yes, it does." Ritsuko laughed.

"Let's go then!" Jumping to her feet, Nana grabbed Ritsuko by the hand and began to drag her out the office's door and towards the HQ's exit.

* * *

Since Second Impact, there was no longer a seasonal cycle in Japan, as well as in most of the rest of the world. In its place lay an endless summer with occasional bouts of extreme rain and other natural disasters. Hot and sticky, it was none too fun living in a world where snow was only something you heard about in your grandparent's stories and in old movies.

To combat the stress of the loss, many cities had implemented various measures to try and keep the public sane without going broke. In most cases this involved planting a number of trees for people to sit under. It wasn't the most elegant solution, but given the near collapse of human society just a decade earlier, one could forgive people for being a bit conservative.

One such green space lay not far from NERV HQ. Installed not long after couples and their children began to move to Tokyo-3, it was meant as a simple place to relax for those working and going to school within earshot of its premises. It was here that Ritsuko, dressed in her usual work attire – a lab coat, blue top, and black skirt with matching tights – came with Nana for their afternoon play date.

"Well, we're here, Nana," Ritsuko spoke. "Now go have fun, I'm going to sit down and go over some of my notes from the experiments earlier."

As she left to go sit on a nearby bench, Ritsuko felt a tug at the hem of her coat, and, turning around, beheld Nana's pouting face.

"What is it, Nana?" Ritsuko asked in an annoyed tone.

"You have to watch me!" The young cat girl pleaded.

"And why is that?"

"Because my mommy always did..."

As cold a woman as she could often be, Ritsuko could not resist Nana's pitiful face and patted her on the head with a smile to reassure her that everything would be all right.

"All right... fine, I'll watch you."

Resuming her short walk to the nearby bench, Ritsuko took off her coat, so as not to dirty it on an old and likely messy park bench, and sat with a sigh of relief to be outside the dusty confines of her office for the first time in nearly 10 hours.

Meanwhile, Nana had taken to dashing about the playground-equipped park chasing after a small rabbit that had caught her attention. Like an oversized house cat, she seemed bent on catching the poor creature simply because she could – and as both predator and prey darted to and fro across the park, the obvious differences in anatomy between Nana and a real cat soon became evident as she attempted to pounce upon the rabbit, only for it to quickly move out of her grasp and cause the mutant child to flop pathetically onto the ground, kicking dust into the air as she did.

Ritsuko couldn't help but giggle a little. She had spent many hours at home watching her own cats carry on doing similarly ridiculous things, but there was something genuinely funny about seeing a human attempting to do the same.

"Why are you laughing?!" Nana said in anguish as she rose from her faceplant and dusted herself off.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean any harm, but that was just the funniest thing I've seen in a very long time." Ritsuko chuckled.

"That's not very nice, Ritsu-nyah!" Nana hissed in her best impersonation of an angry kitten.

"Wait, did you just call me...Ritsu-nyah...?" Ritsuko's laughter grew in an uproarious tone as she could no longer contain herself over how silly all this felt to her.

"Yeah! You got a problem with it, Ritsu-nyah!?" Nana attempted to sound serious but only came across as cute, a problem that comes along with being a cat-human hybrid.

"Fine... fine." Ritsuko said she attempted to calm herself. "You win, I'm okay with Ritsu-nyah...it's cute."

"Really?"

"Really. But if you want to catch that rabbit, you're going to have to change up your game a little," Ritsuko calmly explained. "Come over here and I'll explain."

Returning to the bench where Ritsuko sat, Nana gave the scientist her full attention.

"You see, a good portion of kids like yourself have bodies and instincts that don't quite match up just right. For example, it is rare for bird-type mutants to actually be able to fly because their brain and body are not wired to do so. Without long and tedious hours of practice, they will never be able to even so much as leave the ground." Ritsuko explained dryly. "In your case, your instincts are telling you one way to catch small animals that your body is to big to process and execute properly. If you were, say, the size of a house cat, to say nothing of the shape, it would work. But clearly this isn't the case, so you end up face-down in the dirt."

Nana tilted her head in confusion. She was just over ten years old, and advanced evolutionary biology was certainly not a course offered in the Tokyo-3 elementary school curriculum.

"Let me put it another way, have you ever watched a small animal hunt?"

Nana nodded her head. "I used to watch birds and all kinds of other things do it back when I was living with my mom and dad."

"Well, their bodies are built for hunting. Yours is not. It's that simple."

"But I want to catch the rabbit!" Nana insisted with a flail of her arms.

"Well here's the catch, human beings have always been able to overcome their own genetic, physical, and mental faults through hard work and long hours of practice. With a little bit of training I'm sure you'd be an apt hunter of small animals. How useful that will be in the future, I have no idea, but I'm sure you're capable of it."

That was more Nana's speed. "Work hard and you can do anything!" her mother would often say.

"I think I get it...but I want to catch the Rabbit now, not three years from now."

Ritsuko rolled her eyes – this was why she hated dealing with children. The impatience, the rudeness, the complete lack of self-awareness. It all mixed together to create a headache that often required alcohol to cure. But Nana was at least interesting – and cute – enough that it made putting up with her childish ways worth it.

"Lets see, for now, all I can say is that your center of gravity is to high. As long as you're running after that thing like a human being you'll never catch it without help. Trying running on all fours or something, that may help."

Pure conjecture on Ritsuko's part, her advice was more to keep Nana happy then anything else.

"All right! I'm off!" Dashing off again, Nana lowered herself to all four in an attempt to stalk the rabbit that had eluded her previously.

While plainly silly looking, pushing herself lower to the ground at least prevented the chance of face planting into the earth like she had before. Stalking the rabbit quietly, she sneaked just behind it. Silently she moved forward, digging her nails into the earth as she prepared herself... and pounced!

Leaping forward, hands out and claws at the ready, Nana grabbed at the rabbit with all her might, only for the small creature to just barely avoid her grasp.

Nana began to cry, staining her short dress with a cascade of tears.

"Nana, are you all right?" Ritsuko called as she left the bench to attend to her young child.

"It got away..." Nana whined.

"I know, but you did much better then before." Ritsuko knelt to one knee and brushed the tears from Nana's eyes. "With some practice I'm sure you'll get it next time."

"You promise?" she sniffled.

"I promise, I'll even help if you want."

Nana almost instantly perked up and jumped to her feet with a smile.

"Thank you, Ritsu-nyah! I thought you were just a crazy old lady, but you're really a nice person!"

"I'll just ignore that... but I'm glad you're happy, Nana." Ritsuko smiled. "But I think we should be getting back soon."

"Awwww...okay. But you have to promise you'll play with me again!" Nana huffed.

"Promised. Now let's go." Ritsuko took the young cat girl by the hand as both returned to NERV HQ.

* * *

"And that's the whole story, after that we became good friends and she insisted we play together and that I help her hunt small animals at least twice a week. She was a cute kid and I was honestly sad when the program was canceled and she was returned to her parents."

"You know, I never pictured you as the big sister type, Ritsuko." Misato thought aloud. "I guess we all have sides to ourselves we don't show all the time. But what happened to Nana after she went back home?"

"Her time spent at NERV allowed her to return home without causing any more trouble for her parents. They to had put in quite a few hours taking classes on how to deal with having a mutant child. When they came to pick up Nana on the last day of the program, at first she clung to my leg and refused to go home. But after much prying and crying I finally got her to go with the promise that I'd play with her again someday. Her parents were really sweet people and even thanked me for helping Nana so much."

Ritsuko sighed in a blissful tone; it was good to remember the happy times when the world wasn't in danger of being destroyed by alien monsters. But that was then and the reality of the present was that there was little time for things like the research program she had once been a part of.

"Wow...I had no idea. So that means you're going to meet with this Nana girl then?"

"Bingo. She apparently transferred to Shinji's school a few weeks ago, so when she found out I was still working here, she insisted we meet over lunch."

"Well then, I'll leave you to your little lunch date...Ritsu-nyah." Misato teased as she left the room.

"I swear to god, Misato. If you ever repeat that aloud to anyone I will have your head on a platter."

There was no response from her college friend, she was already long gone.

There were a few quiet cafes left in Tokyo-3 despite the recent rash of Angel attacks. It was at one of them that Ritsuko sat nervously at a small table awaiting the arrival of her old friend. Despite keeping in touch with her family over the years, she had not seen a picture of Nana in ages, making what she looked like somewhat of a mystery. Not that it would be hard to find her, their weren't exactly that many cat-type mutants running around the city as of late.

"Oh, Ritsu-nyah! There you are!" a voice called from the cafe's door way.

Much taller, filled out, and wearing a uniform exactly like that of the female students at Shinji's school, Nana had arrived.

"How have you been? It's been way to long," Nana said as she took a seat across from her mentor.

"I'm still working at NERV. The Angels have been keeping us quite busy recently," Ritsuko replied with a wistful sigh.

"Oh, I know. I can't even count how many times I've had to sleep in a shelter the last couple weeks," responded Nana.

"But what about you? You certainly look nice."

"Thanks!" exclaimed the cat girl. "I try my best to match my clothing to my ears and tail – it's hard sometimes, but I like it that way."

"That's great... so how is school?"

"It's all right. I only really came here because I thought it would be a good stepping stone to doing the kind of stuff you do. My dream is to help other mutant kids like you did me."

"That's very sweet, Nana..."

"Hey, and I got you something!" Nana exclaimed, perking up.

"Oh really? What is it?" inquired Ritsuko.

Withdrawing a small box from her bag, Nana presented it to Ritsuko.

"This is thanks for all you've done for me."

Opening the box, Ritsuko found a emerald green cats collar...and a rabbit's foot attached to a silver key chain.

"I'm flattered, Nana... but you have to tell me, is that a real rabbit's foot?"

"Sure is! Killed it myself a few days ago. Told you I'd catch that rabbit!"

Ritsuko sighed happily. Somethings never change.

* * *

NEXT EPISODE

Evangelion Unit-03 is shipped to Japan to aid in the war against the Angels, and Mari is made its Pilot. But during the test run, the unthinkable happens and the Eva becomes a raging monster! Will Asuka be able to save her friend before it's to late? And just what are the mysterious Evangelion-i? Find out next time in "Belladonna!"

Don't miss it!

* * *

Sorry for the holdup, everyone. I had some issues that delayed the publication of this chapter, mostly my working on a visual novel. But thank you for reading thus far and make sure to leave a review since I'm always look forward to seeing what you all think. As since the story will be entering its next phase starting with the next chapter, I thought I'd open up a mailbag of sorts and answer you guys questions about the series next chapter in the author's notes. Note I will only answer things about the setting, characters, and stuff thats already been revealed. Any secretive stuff, the cause of the mutations and such, will be kept off topic unless you want to speculate, which to i won't answer one way or another. Leave your questions in the reviews or in my mailbox and I'll answer it all soon!


	11. Belladonna

As the light of a new day dawned on Tokyo-3, dark designs brewed far below the earth's surface in the mind of a single man. In his window-lined office, Gendou Ikari sat, his hands interlocked in front of his face in his ever present ambassador's pose, within his head lay the blueprints of the next phase of NERV's true purpose, a plan to change the world forever and, along with it, return to him that that which had been lost a decade before.

Behind the commander stood a more solemn man, no emotion upon his wrinkled face. For too long he had played subordinate to the man he very well knew had played an all-too-direct role in the event that had twisted the world into its current decrepit state – yet he still came to work every day in hopes of making some difference and that in some small way he may be able to help the poor people unlucky enough to be drawn into the fires of NERV's seemingly endless war. That was his agenda this morning, as the sun crept slowly across the sky.

"Commander Ikari," Fuyutsuki stood quietly behind his the leader of NERV, his eyes fixed firmly to the wall, as if to avoid eye contact with his superior. "The report from SEELE recommends that we take swift action in bolstering the base's defenses as quickly as possible."

Gendou remained firm in his stance, wavering not an inch in the face of direct orders from the centuries-old council that had secretly guided mankind from the shadows. Though they were powerful, they could not possibly guess what machinations lie in the mind of NERV's commander.

"A splendid idea." Gendou spoke unflinchingly. "And one I've already spoken to our friends abroad about."

"Really?" Fuyutsuki's solemn stance was broken by a bout of surprise as he stumbled forward an inch or two. "What was their response?"

"Evangelion Unit-03 will be sent to Japan within the week – its pilot will be the snake-child." Gendou's speech was as matter-of-fact as it could possibly be and rang as if he had planned it so far ahead of time that he could brag about it.

"Makinami?!" Fuyutsuki stumbled once more upon his words. "You can't possibly be serious! That girl is a danger to herself and others; she's proven that time and time again. What reason could you possibly have for letting her pilot an Eva again?"

As the sun settled in the sky outside NERV HQ, its rays reflected upon the surface of Gendou Ikari's glasses, blocking his eyes from view and masking the ill intent that radiated from behind his sinister gaze.

"I see no problem in having Makinami pilot the Eva again. She has proven many times over in training that she is perfectly capable of handling herself even in combat." Gendou smirked to no one in particular. Everything was coming together, the arrival of Unit-03 was just another small piece of the sweeping agenda that lay just below NERV's surface.

"If you are sure, Ikari..." Fuyutsuki had returned to his solemn stance, his face no longer contorted into a look of shock. He had been privy to more secrets and disturbing information then had nearly anyone currently working for NERV and had long ago grown accustomed to the often insane and bizarre things the commander uttered within the confines of his lonely office. But there was something outlandish even for Gendou Ikari about letting Mari pilot again.

"_There has to be a reason for it..._" He thought to himself. "_Why put her on active duty when we're perfectly capable of repelling the Angels as-is?"_

Stone-faced as always, Fuyutsuki remained perfectly still as he lingered on the oddity of it all.

"So how are Rei and Shinji?" The older man asked, attempting to turn the conversation away from the commander's subtle machinations.

"Shinji is fine. Rei, however, was injured during the battle against the 8th Angel and has been undergoing physical therapy and bed rest since then."

Gendou's voice remained monotone and devoid of any real emotion, even as he discussed his own child. In many ways, he regarded Shinji as one may an underling – important for the task at hand but perfectly capable of being replaced should the need arise.

"That really is a shame." Fuyutsuki nodded his head in mock agreement with Gendou's sentiment. "We've been lucky that there has been little need to field three Evas as of late. The sooner Rei can return as a pilot, the better."

"And that is why Makinami must pilot." Gendou interrupted. "We are fighting a war that we cannot afford to lose; we must make the most of every pawn in our disposal, no matter how great the risk."

The 9th Angel had been a nebulous and shadowy creature that had gone unnoticed within the confines of Tokyo-3 before it was to late. If not for the miraculous, and incredibly frightening, revival of Unit-01, the entire city may have been engulfed by the Angel's shadowy maw.

"I understand completely. The Angels have grown in power with each encounter; soon, Units 01 and 02 may not be enough to defeat them."

"Exactly." Gendou grinned once more. "And we must match that new power with a trump card of our very own."

"And you see Makinami as that trump?"

"That I do. She is the most talented pilot this organization has ever seen – it is only fitting that she has been kept in reserve for just this sort of moment."

"Was it your doing that she was forced out of active duty? So that you could treat a young girl like some kind of secret weapon?"

Gendou sat silently, there was no need for a response – they both already knew the answer.

* * *

Under the bright lights of NERV's on-site exercise facility, Rei struggled valiantly forward across a pair of suspended beams, placing one clawed foot after another slowly forward as she worked her towards her final destination.

"That's very good, Rei. Just a little bit more and we'll call it a day," the trainer, a woman in a white lab coat and black skirt, spoke, hands held together in a encouraging pose.

It had been quite sometime since Rei's fateful flight skyward in Evangelion Unit-01 that had led to the 8th Angel's defeat and a massive sigh of relief from every member of NERV. Though she had not been wounded in the conflict, the stress of the odd event that led to her victory had put considerable strain on her frail body. A sickly girl to begin with, Rei had been left bruised and barely able to walk.

For nearly a week after the incident, she had lain alone in one of NERV's branch hospitals, staring for hours upon end at the unfamiliar and sterile ceilings of one of the world's most advanced medical facilities. One in a while, Shinji would come by and leave her something to eat and a book to read – and, on one occasion, Mari had forced Asuka to pay a rather begrudging visit, one spent mostly complaining about being dragged from home for something so pointless, but for the most part she had been left alone with her thoughts and aching joints.

Most of the time she had spent reading texts and tomes of dry and intellectual matters, spending long nights devouring the latest discoveries in medicine, physics, and biology. But as of late she had begun to desire more then the sterile world of science and technology. Upon the day she had finally danced among the clouds, even if just for a minute or so, she had glimpsed the endless horizon that lay just out of view from the ground below. As she gazed from on high towards the setting sun as it lay just over the fluffy white clouds of yet another muggy summer day, she had seen just how big the world was for the very first time. There was so much she didn't know and so many things she had never experienced. For the first time, the scope of the universe had made itself truly known to the bird-girl.

When she had alighted upon the school's roof, Shinji had hugged her out of the blue, causing her face to beat a deep crimson as she wondered why he would do such a thing. So many people had ignored her or called her names; she assumed things would always be like that. She would pilot the Eva without any bonds with another human beyond the commander, and then, someday, she would die and be replaced by another.

But she had learned that there was so much more to life. The warmth she had felt that day was unlike anything she had experienced in the past. It made her wish to keep living, to feel it more and more everyday until she thought she would burst. The endless vista above her and the heat deep in her heart had burned themselves in her mind and soul, transformed her; she had become something else entirely. A girl with ambitions and dreams, Rei had gained a reason to live for herself, and that terrified her.

For so long she had lived simply as a tool for others to use and throw away as they saw fit – but now, she must live on, if only for the chance to experience that warmth in her heart again. Slowly but surely, just as she had worked to rebuild her body every day by forcing herself to walk, she had slowly rebuilt her ego, her center of self, and her very soul.

In the present, still between the balance bars made to prevent her from falling and hurting herself, she huffed and strained against the pain, walking ever forward towards a future she had created for herself in the dark recesses of her mind. With each step she thought of seeing Shinji's face again and of gazing together upon the sun at dawn as it rose in the east, cascading its warm and gentle light upon Tokyo-3. And with one last push, cheered on by the woman in white with applause and a gentle smile, Rei reached reached the end of her trial; beet-red and gasping for air, perhaps, but she had done it.

Falling to the ground in a huff, one clawed wing grasping the balance bar, she motioned for her therapist with the other.

"Well you did just super today, Rei!" The woman in white smiled sincerely; she had been with Rei every step of the way, even if her Pollyanna-esque cheerfulness had done little to hasten the bird-girl's recovery. "Just a little more and you'll be good as new. I just know it!"

Rei did not respond to the cheerful woman as she rose to her feet and caught her breath, for her mind lay firmly elsewhere.

"I have to go," Rei stated flatly as she began to gather her things.

"Ohhhh..." The woman smiled wryly as she gave Rei a knowing glance. "Does our little birdy have a date?"

"No. I'm going to see Ikari. He promised he would visit today to celebrate my return to active duty."

"Sounds like a date to me~" The woman snickered.

Rei sneered. There was no time for this; she had a friend to see.

"I'm leaving, then."

"Goodbye, Rei. I'll see you next week!"

Rei did not respond; rather, she simply turned tail and walked away towards the gym's changing room. There was little to say to a person she cared so little about. Though her world was a small one, consisting mostly of her work for NERV, school, and Shinji, it was a happy one that she would not trade for all the friends in the world.

She slowly began to take off, piece by piece, the sweat soaked shirt and pants she had worn to her bi-weekly physical therapy sessions. It was then, as she removed her shirt, that Rei caught a brief glimpse of herself in the mirror suspended above the changing room's sink – there, she saw the brilliant white of her feathers flow together, forming a seemingly endless sea of radiance. She studied the feathers, turning her wing to and fro while paying close attention to each and every feather and quill. It was an odd sight; not long ago her wings had been ragged and unkempt, a reflection of the turmoil raging in her mind. But now, they had returned to what they once were, a proud symbol of the freedom she had just recently attained.

"This is who I am now..." she stated.

Once, not so long ago, Rei had hated her wings. Every night she had dreamed of playing amongst the stars and clouds, of being free from the grip of the Earth and of the world that every other person on the planet lived in. In her dreams, there were no Angels to be fought and no one to gossip about her behind her back. For her, the sky was a place to be rid of all that and more – yet it was just a dream. While her mind had, playing on her avian instincts, insisted she was capable of flight, that if she just pushed herself hard enough she would achieve her dreams, her body had refused to comply and offered only to send her careening face-first into the dirt for defying its ingrained truths. It seemed humans were not, after all, meant to fly.

But now, as she studied her wings, there was no longer any malice in her mind. As she had taken to the sky, the disconnect between body and mind had gently floated away and took with them her old self. Though she was still quiet, stoic, a bit anti-social, and even rude at times, she was free. She could look upon her own body without silently screaming and experience the warmth of others without pushing them away. She had come so far and she owed it all to a little push from a certain someone.

"Yes. This is good." Rei assured herself, nodding in profound agreement with her own statement as she took care while putting on her school uniform.

Collecting her crumpled and sweaty gym suit, Rei stuffed the offending garment into her locker and sealed it till her next therapy session. Clad now in her school uniform, she walked out of NERV HQ and towards the train station with the intent of returning to her tiny apartment.

Behind her a gaggle of high school girls gossiped to one another in hushed voices, a common occurrences in a city as young as Tokyo-3.

"Ohhhh...it's the bird-girl again," one girl whispered. "Isn't she weird looking?"

"Ewww...I know, I wonder if she eats bird seed," giggled another.

"Shut up!" another quietly cried. "She'll hear us!"

"I already did," Rei replied. "And please, stop."

Rei turned and gazed intensely at the girls, using her own reputations against her would-be hecklers. The girls, paralyzed by her gaze, shuddered and shivered, afraid that one wrong move would land one of Rei's talons firmly into their squishy skin.

"We will!" one of them stammered as she shrank back.

"Right! We won't bother you anymore, I promise!" another said on the verge of fear-induced tears.

Speaking not another word, Rei turned back to her original position and laughed ever so lightly as her train roared into the station. The girls merely slunk quietly away, hoping silently that they would never see the bird-girl again.

Rei arrived at her apartment's front door to find Shinji waiting with a store-bought cake balanced upon both of his palms. From the amused look on his face, it appeared he had not been there for very long.

"Have you been waiting long?" Rei asked as she fumbled for the keys in the depths of her school bag, the apartment's front door with a swift turn of her claw.

"I actually just got here," Shinji uttered quietly.

"Come in," Rei said stoically as she entered the apartment, holding the heavy metal door behind her for the sake of her cake-bearing friend.

Rei's apartment had changed little from Shinji's first visit an eternity ago. The harsh concrete features and utilitarian furniture reeked of an occupant who cared so little about their own living space that living in what amounted to a gray box was not only acceptable but almost preferred. But, like it's owner, something small was different about the apartment, a fact that Shinji quickly realized.

Putting down the cake, which simply read "Congratulations!" in big letters, Shinji discovered something different about the sparsely furnished room.

"Wow, you really cleaned the place up!" Shinji exclaimed.

"It was bothering me," Rei replied.

Normally littered with ignored mail, bloody wrappings, and enough medicine to put a person under for an entire week, Rei's little room was now spotless.

"That's good...I guess," Shinji said as he took a seat on Rei's nest-shaped bed. "I'm just glad that you're all right. I was so worried about you after what happened when we fought that Angel."

Rei sat beside Shinji, taking care to assure that there was just enough space between them as to not make the situation awkward.

"It has been hard...but I wanted to come back and pilot the Eva again," Rei spoke stoically.

"How come?" Shinji inquired.

"I want to protect you and everyone else," Rei muttered in a low tone, barely audible to her friend.

Shinji blushed and shrank away from Rei, backing himself against the wall and away from the winged girl. This was the second time that she had said such a thing to him; the intent may have been the same as back then, but the context was different. Back then Rei had merely been a cute girl with whom he happened to work and go to class – but now, after spending countless hours together plotting the impossible, hearing that all-too-familiar word from her instilled a far different feeling in his heart, which now beat a mile a minute within his chest.

"Are you all right, Ikari?" Rei inquired moving on all fours across the bed, being careful not to rip the bedding with her claws as she did, inching towards Shinji until their faces lay mere inches apart.

Flustered beyond words, Shinji blushed and fidgeted as he looked for any way to escape from Rei's concerned gaze.

"A...Ayanami, could you please move a few feet back?" Shinji stuttered.

"Why?" Rei cocked her head to the side in confusion.

Under normal circumstances Shinji would have yelled "YOU'RE TOO CLOSE!" at the top of his lungs and made some excuse to rid himself of the conflicting feelings currently jumping about his mind and making his stomach feel rather uneasy. But now, for some reason, he couldn't.

"Well?" Rei questioned further, pushing herself ever closer to Shinji.

Shinji, having no other idea what to do with the situation, wrapped his arms around the bird girl's waist and dragged her into a warm embrace, negating the awkwardness between them by invoking the mutual warmth they had both felt upon the completion of Rei's first successful flight.

"Why are you hugging me?" Rei spoke in a matter of fact manner. "I've done nothing to deserve a reward."

"It's not a reward, Ayanami." Shinji summoned all his strength to speak. "I'm just happy you're okay and that you'll be back with us at NERV soon. It hasn't been the same since you left."

"I see. I look forward to returning to my regular routine as well." Rei replied. " Should I hug you as well?"

"If you want..." Shinji trailed off.

Doing as she wished but could not vocalize, Rei took both of her clawed hands, reached around Shinji's lithe waist, and linked them behind his back, sheltering the youth in a sea of her soft, white feathers.

Shinji found himself once more at a loss for words and offered no objection to Rei's advances. There was always something calming about being in Rei's soft embrace that reminded him of a time long ago that only existed in the depth of his memories. It was a good feeling and one that he wished would last forever.

"Is this right?" Rei asked.

Shinji nodded his head yes in return.

For a long time the two of them sat entwined in each other's arms, Shinji's back against the wall and Rei with her head on his lap; though the awkwardness remained; there was a certain earnest joy to the scene that lay in the sight of two people enjoying each other's company.

"Hey, Ayanami," Shinji said as he ruffled the bird-girl's bright blue hair.

"What is it?"

"We should probably eat that cake before it gets warm." Shinji said, finally returning to his normal tone of voice.

"All right."

Untangling herself from Shinji, again making sure to avoid scratching him or anything else, Rei rose to a seated position, back against the wall, next to the her fellow pilot.

"Thank you," Rei said without warning.

"For what?" Shinji replied as he retrieved the cake from the dresser.

"For helping me with my flight, and catching me when I fell, and for everything else," Rei said with as much warmth as her persona would allow.

"Well, you're welcome, Ayanami. I'm happy I could help. It seems like everyone around here just wants me to do something or other for them, so it feels good for someone to genuinely need me for a change."

Shinji returned to the bed with cake in hand, a simple and cheap affair, heavy in fat and light on substance.

Both children poked at the cake for awhile before partaking in a small piece of it and deciding that one was enough, and that any more cheap sugar could be saved for another day.

"So..." Shinji said as he took one last bite of his cake. "When are you going to come back as a full-time pilot?"

"It should be another week," she replied.

"Well, I'll be looking forward to your return."

"It will be good to be back. It is lonely here with just my thoughts to keep me company." Rei sounded down, causing Shinji to gaze at her concernedly.

"What do you mean, Ayanami?"

"When I'm alone I begin to think about, well, about things, and I become sad."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, not now. This is a happy time."

"If you say so. But just remember that if you need someone to talk to, I'll always be there for you." Shinji smiled.

"I know." Rei smiled one of her ever so rare smiles back, a clean grin as radiant as her white wings.

The two went back and forth for sometime, talking of school, goings-on at NERV, and what all their friends had been up to in her absence. For nearly an hour the idle conversation continued, going nowhere and existing only to extend their precious time together. Neither wished for the night to end, but as the moon shone overhead through the apartment's sole window, they both knew that the time had come to call it a night.

"I should get going, Ayanami," Shinji said, looking rather sad about the prospect. "You can keep the cake if you'd like."

"All right," Rei responded. "I will show you out."

True to her word, Rei stood up and walked ahead of Shinji, opening the door for him before waving a sorrowful goodbye.

"Goodbye," he said before the door finally closed, forming an impassable barrier between the two."

"Until next time," Rei replied, though her friend could no longer hear her.

As she turned tail and returned to her bed, a small tear ran down Rei's pale face.

"Why am I crying?" She wondered aloud.

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, in the shared apartment of the rest of NERV's pilots, things were quiet. Two girls who had been not seen the field of battle in ages lay side by side staring at the ceiling. Raised from an early age as soldiers, they knew little else beyond the bloodshed and carnage of the battlefield. Both had grown restless in the face of inactivity and had spent many a long night laying around bemoaning such a fate, but tonight was different. With the announced plans to bring Evangelion Unit-03 to Japan, speculation as to who would pilot had danced upon the lips of everyone working at NERV HQ. But, in the end, it should have been obvious from the beginning who had been chosen.

"So I heard that you're going to pilot the new Eva." Asuka rolled onto her side bringing her eye-to-eye with the snake-girl who lay lazily beside her, her tail swaying back and forth in a steady rhythm.

"Yup! I can't wait to get back in the saddle and kick an Angel's ass from here to old Tokyo!" Mari exclaimed, her serpentine eyes gleaming with excitement and vigor.

"I can't blame you – you've been stuck on reserve for nearly a month now." Asuka grinned. "I can't even imagine what you did to fill up all that free time."

"You should know me better than that, princess. So come on, take a guesssss," Mari hissed.

"I really don't know; most of the time, your mind set seems to be split entirely between thinking about piloting the Eva and making fun of me. Since you can't do either of those alone, I don't know."

"You're no fun!" Mari pouted. "But you're pretty much right; I mostly relaxed and thought about what I was going to do once I was able to pilot again... well, that and the usual thinking about you for hours on end." Mari's voice was oddly serious as she beamed an intense gaze into the slime girl's eyes.

"...Cut that out." Asuka rolled her eyes, she was used to Mari's odd advances and keen ability to skirt the line between friendship and that beyond with a simple turn of words by now. For some time, moments like these had made her uncomfortable, just as any connection to another person made her, but near six years of living with a girl who made it a point to say uncomfortable things at every turn had rendered her immune to the brunt of the Mari's snide comments.

"Never!" Mari teased, advancing closer to Asuka until she loomed over her and cast a long shadow over her prone body.

"I'm not kidding!" Asuka said as she flailed about to prevent Mari from coming any closer.

"Not a chance~" Mari sneered, pinning both of Asuka's arms to the bed and silencing any further objections with her immense strength.

"Seriously, Mari, stop it. You're scaring me." Asuka was worried; Mari had never gone this far before and usually stopped with a mere verbal ribbing.

"Just one more thing, princessssss." Mari hissed again, batting her eyes as to point Asuka to the origin of her intents.

"What are you going to do to me?" Asuka's voice quivered with fear.

Loosening her grip on Asuka's soft, jelly-like arms, Mari lowered her head to Asuka's level and placed her lips upon those of her fellow pilot, gently kissing her in as tender a manner as she could manage. Gone was the sweat-inducing dread that had hung over the pair just moments before, and in its place lay only an intense and passionate heat as Asuka writhed and melted, quite literally at times, in tune with the movement of Mari's lips against her own. Despite her earlier objections, Asuka did nothing to resist the lip lock, instead staying still and quiet, save for an occasional muffled moan, her eyes closed as her closest friend slipped her tongue into the mix, intermingling only further their already entwined bodies.

At any moment, Asuka could have let her body melt away and slip free of Mari's grasp, but instead, she held firm against the impulse to lose herself to the moment and become a puddle of goo. It was rare for such an instinct to be triggered by a positive emotion, but not unheard of. In the days when she had first become a pilot and won the position of pilot of Unit-02, she had spent many a blissful hour in a puddle-like state, simply letting the warmth and joy of the moment wash over her without having to muster the mental mettle needed to retain her human form without the help of a plugsuit.

It was a similar feeling as she began to work in rhythm with Mari, giving it all to make the situation as blissful as humanly possible. Her hands no longer pinned the to bed, Asuka's slimy appendages began to roam elsewhere, taking in parts of Mari's body with a light squeeze that broke the snake-girl's kiss and caused to utter a cute little noise that stood completely out of character with her usual "cool girl" persona, both girls working in unison for the sake of the heated feeling that spread throughout both of their bodies as a testament to how in synch they had become in every facet of life.

Her face red, almost as so as Asuka's body, and her heart beating at an intense pace, Mari's tail, as if of its own volition, began to coil around Asuka's body, squeezing at her soft gelatinous mass in an embrace as gentle as Mari could muster.

"Asuka..." the snake girl panted as she broke her kiss and lay her head upon Asuka's chest. "Sorry about that."

"Goddam it, Mari." Asuka said in a strained manner. "That was my first... first a lot of things."

"You were totally into it." Mari objected with a tired smile.

Asuka looked to her left, then the right, then sighed a strained sigh as she looked back at Mari.

"I forbid you from telling anyone about this ever," she commanded with a huff.

"If you say so~" Mari laughed. "But, answer me one more thing before I go to bed."

"What is it, four eyes?"

"You're coming to my startup experiment this weekend, right?" Mari asked expectantly.

"Oh...sure. You've got it," Asuka replied awkwardly.

"Okay then, good night princess."

Mari lay her head upon Asuka's chest, yawned, and promptly fell into a slumber, her tail still wrapped tightly around Asuka's entire lower body, blocking her from moving from the bed no matter how much she may have wished to.

"You idiot, you were always forcing new things on me even when I said a million times over that I didn't want to. I think you went a little to far this time...but it was fun..." Asuka patted Mari on the head before reaching behind her and yanking on the pull string of a nearby lamp. "Good night, four eyes."

* * *

Evangelion Unit-03 had begun its journey to Japan in the eastern United States, in yet another of NERV's branch bases. Loaded onto a transport plane several days ago, the black-colored double of Evangelion Unit-04 would soon be unloaded on the front lines of the war against the Angels and be put through its paces to test not only its prowess, but also the readiness of its young pilot. Neither pilot nor Eva had been put to the test in quite sometime, making such testing a necessity in order to avoid the sort of dangerous situations that seemed to arise far too often as of late.

Though few knew the exact reasoning for the command from above to press Mari back into service, the ever-increasing power of the Angels was enough to convince most of NERV's staff that it was a necessary step in the defense of mankind's future. "Most," however, did not include Misato Katsuragi, who had, ever since the bloody mess left in the Ninth Angel's wake, begun to doubt the very organization for which she worked.

"Doesn't one else think it's a bit odd that we're getting another Eva even with Ayanami coming back to active duty a week from now?" Misato wondered aloud.

Sitting in the makeshift command center rigged together to analyze and monitor Eva-03's condition there was an aura of suspicion lingering over Misato's every action. It had happened to suddenly and with little forewarning, just a week ago she had been altered that another Eva would soon be put under her command. No signs of whom would pilot it nor why such a thing was needed, beyond "we need more power to defend against the Angels", was ever given.

"Calm down, Misato. I'm sure it was only natural that they'd want four-eyes back on duty. I mean, as much as I hate to admit it, she's probably the best pilot we have – other then myself, of course." Asuka stated with little humility.

"And remind me why you are here, Asuka?" Misato inquired an annoyed tone.

"Mari wanted me to watch her return to piloting, that is all." Asuka reinforced her words with a sly grin and confident posing. Both signs that she was sure that there was little Misato could do to get a word in edgewise.

"It's sort of odd to see you care about another person like that, Asuka. But I won't question, it's a nice change of pace from your yelling at Shinji and Ayanami all the time."

Misato smiled as Asuka's cherry-red outer surface boiled with anger. Asuka's psyche was often as fragile as her body, shifting and changing with her every mood and state of being. Though, more often then not, bravado, anger, and self loathing – often in that order – had come to define her default set of emotions over the years.

"Calm down, Asuka. I have work to do, so you should go wait with the rest of the observation team till we begin the experiment."

"Fine, fine. Tell four-eyes I'll be watching."

"Can do."

Asuka sauntered off with a confident shake of her plugsuit-clad body, in a way that suggested she was actually happy about the situation in one way or another, a rare state of being for the slime-girl as far as Misato was aware. She had often wondered why Mari was the only person capable of bring out these emotions in Asuka, but it was best not to pry; there were more important things to attend to then the the personal lives of children besides Shinji.

With the pilot of 02 gone, it was back to business for NERV's Director of Operations, no matter how many apprehensions she may have had about the sudden launch of Eva-03, it was still her job to make sure the test ran smoothly and on-time. The rest fell to Ritsuko and the engineering staff to launch the mechanical giant into mock combat.

* * *

"Mari," Misato radioed, "can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, boss lady!" the snake girl returned.

"That's good. We're going to begin the test soon, so just sit tight and we'll do the rest."

"Understood~"

"And one more thing," Misato added slyly. "Asuka said to tell you that she'd be watching."

"That's ssssweet of her," Mari cooed. "I better not screw this up then!"

"Good luck out there, Mari," Misato said calmly.

"You to, boss lady. I'll see you when I get back."

The radio chatter was silenced by a loud hissing noise, provided by the static of the signal rather then Mari's tendency to roll her S's for the sake of embracing her serpentine heritage in the most stereotypical way possible.

Everything was in Ritsuko's hands now, Misato could merely sit and wait until the increasingly mysterious weapons known as Eva would roar to life and be put through a rigorous series of tests to determine it's fitness for defending mankind.

"All systems are go, releasing limiters," one of the technicians called out as they monitored 03's various faculties through a computer monitor.

"Good, keep it up everyone," Ritsuko spoke from behind the battery of people and state-of-the-art technology.

"Attaching umbilical cable."

Outside the makeshift command center, the enormous plug that brought near unlimited power to the Eva was being hoisted into position via a hydraulic lift into position and then, ever so slowly, attached the mechanical giant at the base of it's spine.

"Umbilical cord has been attached to the Eva, ma'am."

"Then all that's left to do is turn on the power..." Ritsuko spoke quietly. Of all the people in the world, she perhaps knew the Eva best – their secrets, their mysterious origins, their links to Second Impact – and with each passing day and the more she learned, the harder it became for her to justify dirtying her hands in all the vile things that lay just below NERV's surface. But, like Misato, it was a job she could not abandon so easily. For there were simply to many people relying on her, a fact she was reminded of daily in the smiling face of Maya Ibuki, a young technician who seemed to idolize her above all else. "Let's do this, start the mobile generator."

"Understood, diverting power to Evangelion Unit-03. Start up in T minus 9...8...7...6..."

As the count down neared its finish, Ritsuko sighed. "It is all for the greater good." She repeated over and over to herself.

"5...4...3...2...1...0!" The technician finished. "The Eva is live, I repeat the Eva is live!"

Outside the tent, Eva-03 began to stir from it's slumber like a great bear emerging from a long winter's hibernation. Kept out of commission for ages by the simple fact that there was no need for it, the black Eva was a beast in need of a keeper, someone to direct its massive power into a constructive form. It had found that keeper in the snake-girl who now resided within the giant's cockpit.

The massive creature soon began to move, willed by it's pilot to slowly step forward out of the launching rig and into the sun for the first time in months. Stopping a few hundred yards from its starting point, and scaring away several birds in the process, Mari checked in with the command center.

"Everything is A-OK over here and it feels great to be back in the ol' giant robot! How are things down there?" Mari radioed.

The snake girl could not be more excited about her new position; there was little she loved in all the world more then sitting in the pilot's seat of mankind's most powerful weapon.

"Well, everything looks good over here," Ritsuko responded. "Just move it a forward a little more then we'll begin weapons testing, OK?"

"Got it!"

Her mind vested entirely in thoughts of robotic glory, Mari thrust the Eva forward, bringing its light trot to a full-on dash, speeding across the testing grounds in what could best be described as a mad-cap sprint. Running with the relative speed of an Olympic runner and only half of the grace, Mari kicked up huge clouds of dust with each stomp of the Eva's massive boot against the dry earth below, shrouding the midnight-black Eva in a cloak of dust and dirt, a fitting symbol of its pilot's style and prowess – effective, yet unrefined and crude.

"A bit unnecessary, but good work, Mari," Ritsuko spoke. "Now come on back and grab a rifle and we'll begin the rest of the tests."

"Can do."

As the Eva turned tail and began to return, an odd reading appeared back at the command center.

"Come look at this" One of the technician's spoke to Ritsuko.

"What is it?" She said looking over her subordinate's shoulder.

A large, red, pulsing icon had appeared on the screen. In bold letters it read, "Blood Type: Unknown"

"Blood type: Unknown?" Ritsuko questioned.

"It may be an Angel, ma'am."

"Within the Eva?"

"Yes, but is may just be a computer glitch."

"We can't risk it being an error, radio to the pilot to get back here and abort the test. We have enough data as is."

Turning on the radio once more, Ritsuko turned to speak to Mari directly. After what had happened with Ayanami, they simply could not risk losing another pilot, even if just for a short while.

"Makinami, an unknown reading has been found emanating from within your Eva. Please return to base, the test will be aborted for the time being." Ritsuko reasoned.

"What? But I was just starting to have fun..." Mari said in dejection.

"Please, Makinami, this is for your own safety."

"I know. I know. I''ll be there in a minute."

"_It figures, I finally get to be a pilot again and everything just screws up like it always does,"_ Mari thought to herself._ "This never happens to anyone else... I swear, I'm cursed."_

Her head hung low, Mari directed the Eva back to its home. The Eva's steps reflected its pilot's emotional state; dragging each foot in front of the other, it seemed as if the massive creature itself had been overwhelmed by depression.

"Is it odd for an Eva to move like that?" One technician asked in a hushed voice.

"Yes...yes, it is. Can you check the pilot's synch ratio for me?"

A quick look at the monitors confirmed what Ritsuko had feared.

"It's over 500 percent, ma'am! That shouldn't be physically possible!"

"Don't you think I know that?!" Ritsuko yelled.

"What should I do, ma'am?"

"Order an ejection right away, we'll nip this in the bud before it grows out of control."

"Ordering ejection..." The computer responded only with a violent clash of noise and lights, causing fear to grow in the minds of all involved. "The order has been rejected."

Ritsuko lay silent. Nothing in her vast scientific lexicon that could describe the unknown phenomena occurring before her very eyes. Something had overcome their control of the Eva, ignoring their orders and placing control in the hands of something else entirely. The only question remained was just whose will now commanded mankind's most powerful weapon.

* * *

"_We are proud to announce that Asuka Langley Soryu will be the official pilot of Evangelion Unit-02! Would you care to say a few words, Asuka." The presenter announced with a cry of swelling pride._

"_It was only natural that I was chosen, I was the best candidate after all." The jelly-girl bragged._

"_Asuka, everyone! This is the product of all of your hard work, so let's give a hand to our new pilot and all the people that made this moment possible."_

_The audience erupted in cheers of congratulations and a seemingly endless array of clapping, as for nearly seven years NERV's German branch had embarked on a seemingly endless journey of finding a suitable flight candidate from among the many, many mutant children that had been left in their care._

_Among the sidelines sat the snake-tailed substitute pilot of Unit-02 There had been no celebration of her appointment; she was just a replacement in case something happened. Though she clapped slowly for her dear friend, there was little happiness in her celebratory actions. Mari had once thought she would be the Eva's sole pilot and be able to bathe in the excitement of charging about the battlefield in a giant of steel and flesh for as far as her young mind could see into the near future. This had nothing to do with Asuka, and everything to do with her own disappointment._

_Mari's sighing was swallowed by the cheers of the crowd and Asuka's continued loop of "thank yous' and "your all to kind". On the verge of crying, she slunk to the back of the stage, hiding her depression from the world at large. For nearly an hour she sat behind the scenes, crying into the scales of her tail that glistened in the bright stage lights while wet with the product of her sadness._

"_Hey, you all right back there?"As the crowd's roar had subsided and the event over, leaving all involved to return to their daily lives, a voice echoed from above. _

"_Huh?" _

_Mari looked up from her sobbing to see Asuka standing over her, a worried smile of her face._

"_Well?" She added._

"_I'm fine." Mari huffed._

"_You're clearly not OK, your tail is shining like it's been soaked in a rain storm...is this about me being appointed as the Eva's pilot?"_

"_Maybe..."_

"_Listen, Mari,." Asuka took a seat beside her friend. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're the better pilot between the two of us. But they chose me because I'm the safe option. It's not your fault. So come on, turn off the waterworks."_

"_But I wanted to..."_

"_Yeah, yeah, I know, you wanted to be the pilot. Listen, I know you better then anyone, four-eyes. Your a weirdo who likes to fight and gets high off riding in giant robots. But you're _my_ weirdo, and it hurts to see you like this," Asuka interrupted._

"_I'll take that as a compliment, Princess," Mari giggled lightly as she brushed tears from her eyes and tail._

"_And look at it this way – with you as the backup pilot, it's likely we'll be together even more from now on, and I swear someday you'll be a pilot in your own right, or my name isn't Asuka Langley Soryu."_

"_You promise?"_

"_Yes...I promise." Asuka said as she rolled her eyes._

_Mari took the moment to hug her friend without so much as a warning._

"_You're to good to me, Princess."_

"_I know." _

* * *

"She believed in me, dammit! The princess' promise finally came true and you're not going to take this from me and make her a liar! Nobody does that to the princess... NOBODY!"Mari seethed from within the Eva's cockpit as she brought the giant to a complete stop in strict defiance of direct orders from above.

Mari's mind was a raging storm of anger and loathing. Whose place was it to give her the thing she desired most only to snatch it away because of some idiotic computer glitch? No one as far as she was concerned, this test would only end when she willed it to.

"Mari listen, please come back..." Ritusko argued. But there was no answer.

"The pilot's synch ratio is over 700%!" One technician yelled, her voice laced with a sense of deep seated horror.

"900...no, one thousand percent!" Another yelled in shock. "An A.T. Field has been deployed and has enshrouded the Eva. All communication has been cut off!"

True to the computer's analysis, the Eva had become cocooned within a sphere of hexagonal plates that radiated immense power and instilled in all who bore witness to them an impending sense of dread. Despite all contact with the outside world being severed, an immense and horrifying noise emanated from within the metaphysical cage. At first came the sound of immense bones being broken in two with a loud and sudden snap like a twig being broken by a child's hands; again and again the sound echoed from within the sphere, becoming louder and more grotesque with each passing moment. The worst of it was not merely the constant snapping, but the sound of _something _clawing away at its own body, ripping and tearing away layer after layer of flesh and muscle as the sound of dripping blood sloshed about in time to clawing rhythm in a sort of horrid harmony that defied the imagination of mortal minds.

It was only when there was no more flesh left to strip and only imagined images of gaping wounds and spurting blood danced in the heads of the NERV personnel, the whole process seemed to play itself out in reverse. Accompanied by a great and pained howling not unlike that of Unit-01, the sound of bone and flesh being put knit together echoed to the surface, a grisly form of metaphysical mad science unbeholden to the laws and physics of the mortal world.

"What is going on, Ritsuko?" someone spoke, stunned.

"I don't know...but please send a message to Misato."

"What should I say?"

"Tell Asuka to get her ass into 02 right now, or there is a very good chance that we may all very well die."

After nearly half an hour of the horrid symphony that had echoed from within 03's A.T. Field, the sounds simply stopped, granting a much needed reprieve to the staff of NERV. Just enough time, in fact, to ready Evangelion Unit-02 to counterattack whatever may emerge from that closed-off space.

"This is Asuka, 02 is all ready to go. But please tell me, what the heck is going on out there?"

"We don't know," Misato explained via radio. "But your orders are to retrieve the Eva and Mari intact. Is that clear? If you are forced to choose one or the other, Mari takes top priority."

"Your talking about her like she's a piece of equipment," Asuka complained.

"Those are the commander's orders, not mine," Misato said in a matter-of-fact manner.

"Seriously?"

"Yes... but there is no time to worry about that now. You should just stay on standby until whatever is going on in that sphere runs its course. We don't want to have to drag your butt out of the fire too, you know."

"Roger that, Misato." Asuka laughed.

After awhile longer, in the midst of a seemingly endless silence, the A.T. cocoon began to slowly unravel itself, with each hexagonal segment spinning out of existence slowly as if attempting to heighten the horror lurking in the hearts of all of NERV's staff. One panel revealed the Eva's arm, still intact despite all the painful sounds that they all had heard earlier. And then came another, and another, until the true form of the beast was revealed; though the Eva seemed intact from the waist up, below, its legs had been fused together and reconfigured into a great tail like that of a massive snake. Its other features followed similar suit, becoming less bulky and more streamlined and sinister as if mimicking its pilot at hundreds of times the scale.

"Mari...?" Asuka radioed as she shook with fear.

"You're not going to take it from me...no one is going to take it from me..." With 03's communications systems restored, the sound and image of a girl driven mad shook Asuka to her literal core. From her bloodshot eyes to the violent sneer on the snake-girl's face, something was clearly wrong with Mari.

"What are you talking about, four-eyes? Get your butt over here before I have to drag it back."

"Not _this_ time..." Mari mumbled, completely ignoring her friend's order.

Acting upon its pilot's subconscious desires, 03 sprung into a rapid slithering dash towards 02. Its movement as its torso swung from side to side in time with its tail was unsettling; while such a method of locomotion seemed almost cute in Mari's case, when applied to a pitch black and heavily armored giant, it was nothing short of terrifying.

Assuming a defensive position, Asuka braced herself for impact and possibly to launch a counterattack before Mari could make one of her own. Foot dug into the ground and arms held firm, Asuka stared down the possessed Eva with a will of steel and nerves to match. She would not back down, not when her one real friend was on the line.

Its path undeterred by 02's resistance to its charge, 03 soon collided with its older sibling, pushing the red Eva back several hundred feet in the process. Its maw agape and snake-like fangs on full display, the creature launched an intimidating display. Asuka, however, was unmoved. She had seen worse then this, creatures more alien and bizarre then an oversized garden snake with arms. In defiance of its opponent's show of power, 02 grabbed at the black beast's throat and began choking it in the process.

As if gasping for air, the serpentine behemoth attempted to free itself from Asuka's grip; it lay both hands upon the opponent's one, only to find its lack of defense had won it a rapid series of punches from 02's free hand directly to its armored stomach. The black giant winced in pain, howling not in intimidation but in anguish.

"Come on you stupid thing, give me back my Mari!" Asuka screamed as she commanded the Eva to land one more punch in the creature's gut.

"Asuka...?"

"Yeah, it's me! But you need to stop acting stupid already and come back home!" Asuka cried as she assaulted the mutant Eva more and more, hoping to beat some sense into her friend by proxy.

"But the test...!" Mari objected as her Eva rocked and buckled under the force of Asuka's assault.

"Listen." Another blow landed firmly in the creature's chest. "What's more important to you – me, or this stupid robot?!"

"Princess, I..."

"Yeah, exactly." Loosening her grip on the black Eva's neck, a high kick from 02 rocked the side of the creature's head, knocking it off balance and sending it hurtling toward the ground below. With a loud thud, 03 fell to its side, its eyes as lifeless and dull as it was. It seemed almost as if all vitality had been drained from the Eva's body.

"Misato, I think I've solved your problem." Asuka gloated as she poked at the fallen Eva like a child may the dead body of a small animal.

"Awesome – we'll send the ejection codes to Mari and see what happens." Misato answered.

A moment later, the rear hatch containing the entry plug burst open, ejecting its contents into the open air of yet another muggy Tokyo-3 afternoon. It was not long before the pilot of the beastly Eva, the snake girl who had seemed to cause the problem in the first place, emerged, slightly bruised and worse for wear, but otherwise fine.

"Retrieve Mari and we'll call this mission complete. Good job, Asuka."

Walking confidently towards the fallen Eva, Asuka directed 02's hand to Mari's level, beckoning her to climb aboard. The snake girl, sick of all the chaos and pain she had gone through, complied without a word, climbing the enormous hand and later loading herself into the Eva's cockpit as Asuka opened it for her.

"Princesssss!" Mari screamed as she fell directly into Asuka's lap, her heavy tail landing directly on her friend's face.

"...Four-eyes," Asuka mumbled as she shoved Mari's tail away from her face, "do you know how much trouble you've caused for everyone?"

Mari nodded.

"Well good..." Asuka affirmed. "...Just don't do it again."

"I won't... but I know that if I'm ever in trouble, my beloved Princesssss will always be there to come and rescue me~" Mari hissed.

"You better be willing to do the same for me, Mari. This relationship works both ways or not at all."

"Oh, you _know_ I'd do anything for you." Mari hugged Asuka from behind.

_This had all been too easy_, Ritsuko thought as she went over what little data was collected from Mari's test run. The Eva were weapons unlike any seen in the history of mankind and were armored well enough to withstand all but the most aggressive of attacks. Asuka had merely punched the beast over and over, and finished it with a kick to the side of the head. That may have brought it down for a moment, but something strange was going on.

A warning signal sounded throughout the makeshift control center as the computer system suddenly began flashing red danger signs. It didn't take long for the complacency afforded by Mari's rescue to give way to widespread panic; the readings were clear and pointed only to the worst case scenario.

"The Eva is beginning to move!" one technician yelled.

"How is that even possible?" another added.

Ritsuko, wishing to confirm the readings for herself, stepped out of the tented safe zone and was quickly greeted by a rather frightening sight. The serpentine Eva that had been seemingly dead just moments before was beginning to twitch and moan as the damage Asuka had done began to repair itself, reconnecting broken armor plating and sealing open wounds as if by magic. The great monster soon looked as new as it had the day it had come to Tokyo-3, showing no sign it had ever even entered armed conflict.

"My god..." Ritsuko said in a whisper.

The technicians scrambled to notify the rest of the staff, sending a very loud and very urgent message to the military detachment assembled elsewhere within the makeshift facility.

"Attention all personnel, the enemy has begun to move. Take all necessary precautions," rang out the warning across the facility.

Rushing back to her team, Ritsuko scrambled to spread a more specific message to Misato and Asuka.

"The Eva has gone berserk; that is the only reasonable explanation," she spoke. "You are hereby authorized to destroy that thing."

"You heard the lady, Asuka." Misato chimed in. "Show that thing what your made of!"

With a nod of her head in return and with Mari in tow, Asuka sprang into action. No longer held back by the possibility of hurting a dear friend, her attack began quickly and without warning. Brandishing a rifle meant for testing, she sprayed the slowly awakening Eva with a hail of bullets. Though the ranged assault pierced the creature's armor and severed flesh from bone, it soon began to regenerate even that, rendering Asuka's assault completely meaningless as it roared to a full upright position.

"Damn it!" Asuka yelled as she abandoned the rifle and began to charge at the Eva head-on, extracting 02's progressive knife from its shoulder pylon as she did. Her intention was to see if severing the creature's limbs would be a more effective means of attack.

The snake-like 03 soon did much the same, beginning a slithering attack of its own. Without Mari's will to guide it, the Eva had become, as Ritsuko had reasoned, nothing more then a monster interested only in the destruction of the crimson mecha that had downed it in the first place.

As Asuka and Mari neared the beast, 02's arm swung high into the air and, knife in hand, struck down in into 03's skull, causing it to unleash a wave of tortured screams and howls. The black Eva in turn began to wildly scratch its claws about every available part of 02's body, ripping into its armor and drawing blood and bile from the flesh upon which its unguided attack happened to land.

The two struggled back and forth for some time, with knife and claw ripping into flesh and metal over and over until even 03's ebony hide had become stained a dull shade of crimson – and despite the damage, each fought on, not wishing to surrender any ground to its massive foe.

"You got any bright ideas on how to deal with this thing, Mari? It is _your_ Eva after all." Asuka groaned as she fought through the frustration of getting nowhere fast.

"Not a clue, princess," Mari smirked. "but if you just keep beating on it like that, it's going to keep healing itself till we're good and dead."

"Fine!" Asuka yelled as she swiped her knife at the enemy Eva's exposed shoulder joint, separating, with some effort, its arm from its body.

"Awesome, do it again!" Mari cheered from behind the pilot's seat.

"If you insist," Asuka returned.

As 03 reeled from the loss of its limb, Asuka seized the moment, grappling the creature and lashing out with a repeat performance of her much lauded attack. Striking swift and true against 03's struggling stance, the progressive knife once more found a home in the Eva's arm, twisting and turning until the cracking of immense bones and muscle sounded like a symphony to the pilot's ears.

The black Eva's second arm fell unceremoniously to the ground just as the first had. With nothing left for the Eva to hold onto its prey, Asuka smirked. She thought she had won as she went to finish what she had begun, an attempt to crush 03's head and end this pointless conflict once and for all.

And she would have won... had she not forgotten, in her euphoric state, the Eva's immense tail, which had, when she was not looking, whipped itself into the air and came down to impact the Eva with immense force and power, sending 02 to the ground below.

Tied to the earth, the now-armless 03 made full use of its serpentine form, ensnaring 02 within the coils of its immense tail. It began to squeeze harder and harder, snapping apart armor and bone in an act seemingly motivated by revenge for the loss of its arms.

"You okay, Asuka?" Mari spoke.

"I'm just fine... which is more then I can say for 02."

With Unit-02 unable to move or resist the power of 03's tail, both pilots could only sit at the creature's mercy as it opened it's immense maw and bared its fangs. Dripping with poison and malice, 03 took full advantage of its position and bit down on 02's head, injecting copious amounts of poison in the process.

As the poison began to work its way through 02's system, something began to fall apart in the metaphysical realm that existed just outside of human understanding. Hurting not the body, but rather the soul, the venom eroded away the very the force that had made the empty vessel that was the Eva move in the first place. With the core of its being rotting away like a millennium-old tree, the Eva had become nothing more then a massive statue and a testament to how even the most powerful can be brought low by seemingly nothing.

"Move, damn you!" Asuka yelled as she flailed at the 02's controls. "You're _my_ doll and you _will_ do what I say!"

But her "doll" refused to answer; it couldn't.

As the poison spread, every defense, even the A.T. Field itself – the manifestation of the soul – had begun to break down, leaving Mari and Asuka sitting alone within the metal coffin that was Evangelion Unit-02.

"Please...?" Asuka begged on the verge of tears. "Why won't you move?"

"Asuka..." Mari muttered.

With no hope left, the slime-girl balled into the fetal position and began to cry. She had always been the best and her control of everything she had ever done, but to be deprived of that control was what she feared most.

"Get a hold of yourself, Asuka! This isn't over yet." She shook her downtrodden friend, imploring her to do something...anything.

"What can I do?" She cried.

"You're stronger than this thing. I know you are." Mari stood stern. "You were there for me no matter what, through hell and worse; you stood stronger and more confident than anyone I've ever known. You are more than this Eva and you are more than a pilot..."

Mari to began to cry, blubbering her words through a veil of tears and spit. "And damn it...I love you, and I know you can get through this!"

"Mari..." Asuka sat in stunned silence.

"So get your ass moving and kill that thing already!"

With no will of its own, 02 was a blank slate with a dead battery. Just as 03 had done before it, it required a will to fulfill its true potential.

"_Asuka."_ A voice rang in the slime-girl's mind from the ether.

"_Who's there?" _Asuka returned.

Her words were not answered, but a warm yet subtle feeling began to wash over the cockpit; no longer constrained to the Eva itself, something miraculous was happening.

"I understand!" Asuka yelled. "_You've_ been here all along."

Asuka concentrated, raising her will to the surface and extending it upon the physical world. Soon, as all her troubles and worries had been answered, the barrier of the soul known to most as an A.T. Field had been raised just outside 02's body, blocking 03 from attacking further.

"Wow!" Mari shouted. "Just a little more!"

Playing with not only her own soul and that which was unbound from 02, the barrier grew more and more powerful, until, at the peak of its power, it began to affect physical space, repairing the damage afflicted by the poison and expelling it by converting 02's metal-encased body into a jelly-like substance.

Too slippery to grip, the newly gelatinous 02 quickly escaped from 03's hold and stood tall in the afternoon sunlight. Much as 03 had become a double of it's pilot, so had the same occurred within 02. Resembling Asuka in form and function, it was a majestic, if slightly silly, amalgamation of human will and engineering.

"Let's finish this," Asuka cheerfully chuckled as she took hold of 03's head and pushed harder and harder until the poor beast went limp, rendering it unconscious.

Though it would eventually regenerate most of the damage done to it, there would be enough time to properly restrain the Eva and refit it for normal use.

A collective sigh of relief washed over the testing grounds as 02 returned to normal, its jelly-like body returning to a solid state. The nightmare of the day had ended.

* * *

"Asuka! Mari! Are you two all right?" Misato radioed.

"We're just fine, though I think the princess is a bit sleepy."

"Thank god." Misato responded.

After Misato retrieved the youths from the immense giant, Asuka took to her room for a well-earned nap. Misato and Mari, however, paid a visit to Ritsuko's section of the facility. Their heads buzzing with a million questions, both girls settled on something simple to start things off.

"All right, spill it. What the hell is going on here?" they demanded in unison. Ritsuko merely sat calmly, sipping a cup of coffee as if nothing strange had happened at all that day.

The future remains a mystery as the transformation of Evangelion 03 calls into question everything we know about NERV, the mutant children, and the Eva. While Ritsuko tries her to best to weather the storm of questions posed to her by pilot and friend alike, the truth of Second Impact is finally revealed.

Stay tuned next time for "A Singular Truth." There won't be any fanservice~

* * *

Questions are still open guys~


	12. A Singular Truth

"Okay, spill it! What the hell is going on here!?" Misato yelled in tune with Mari.

Ritsuko remained calm even under the verbal assault of NERV's director of operations, the very picture of a calm and collected woman. Quietly sitting and sipping her coffee, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened just hours before. Long privy to the deepest and darkest secrets of NERV's seemingly endless archives and hidden truths via her connection to the Commander, the sudden transformation of Unit-03 into a raging serpentine beast that was more a surprise then a mystery to her.

"Calm down, _Sergeant_. There will be time for explanation after we've cleaned up the mess that _thing_ tore across the countryside just now and gotten 03 back to base."

Misato backpedaled with a sigh, Ritsuko was right -as she was more often then not-.

"Fine. But as soon as we get 03 all nice and clean, we're going to sit down and have a nice long talk – just you, me, and all the kids." Misato shot her friend a harsh glare, shorthand for just how serious she was about the entire matter.

"Yes, yes. Once everything is in order, we should all meet somewhere off-base to discuss the current situation. It's to dangerous to speak about any of this within earshot of NERV, you never know who may be watching or listening in that place."

"In over your head again, aren't you, Ritsuko?" Misato laughed awkwardly.

"Most likely."

Ritsuko had not so long ago stumbled upon the beginning of something that had begun with a certain child's medical records and had since exploded into a broad vista of covers ups, weird science, and the intersection of reality and things once thought to be nothing more then then the babbling of would-be mystics and pseudo-scientists. And yet, in her endless drive to get to the bottom of it all, Ritsuko had delved deeper an deeper towards the truth, entwining herself in an endless well of strange things in pursuit of the reality surrounding the mutant children and fifteen years worth of NERV's secret dealings.

"Are you two done then?" Mari asked half sarcastically.

"I guess so," Misato reasoned.

"Well then, I'm going to go tend to the princess till we get my Eva all packed up and ready to go home."

"'Your Eva?'" Ritsuko chimed in.

"Yep, I figure since it looks like a big snake and all now that it should be mine from now on."

Mari smiled, as if to show off the small fang-like teeth jutting from the roof her mouth.

"We'll have to do a few more tests to make sure that 03 is in fighting shape, but I don't think that should be a problem, Makinami."

"Seriously?! That thing nearly leveled this base and killed us all; why the hell would we let it anywhere near the battlefield ever again?" Misato yelled.

"That is simple, and something we will discuss later; it only went berserk when Mari was removed from the cockpit. As long as it had a will to guide it, it was perfectly fine. The real problem was Mari not being in a right state of mind. As long as she is capable of controlling her emotions, 03 should be fine as well. But that is all just conjecture on my part. As I stated, we're going to have to run a few more tests before letting it back on active duty."

Ritsuko took turned her gaze to Misato, who still fumed over the mere suggestion that the rampaging beast might be of practical use to.

"But...!" Misato said in protest, only to be drowned out by Mari's ever chipper voice.

"Sounds good to me doc! And see, boss lady, there's nothing to worry about. Me and Asuka are safe, we've got the Eva under control and nobody died. Seems like we came out of this one in pretty good shape."

Misato sighed – she couldn't really argue with that logic. By most metrics, the usual Angel attack cost the Japanese government trillions of yen in damage and loss of life. The most they had lost today was the trees that had been uprooted during 03's rampage.

"I trust that we won't have a repeat performance of today?" Misato mumbled.

"Of course, we'll do everything in a controlled laboratory setting. There is little chance of the Eva going berserk again and even if it does, we'll have the option of sealing it away before the situation gets out of hand."

"You heard the lady!" Mari added. "Lets wrap this up!"

"Yeah...now seems like a good time to go home and go to sleep for a few days," Misato added tiredly. "Let's get the Eva together and get out of here."

Taking her words as an order, the recovery operation began. A crew scrambled from the operations tent and began the salvage, wrapping 03's unconscious body in an enormous tarp and binding its tail with powerful elastic cables, while its severed arms were contained as a sample to be studied. The Eva would soon be loaded onto a plane in much the same manner as how it had arrived in Japan and would be brought back to NERV's underground HQ for a rigorous round of cleaning, a battery of tests, and finally, another start-up experiment. An experiment that, hopefully, would not require tactical intervention.

As the Eva was prepped for it's short journey to its permanent home in one of NERV's holding cages, the three girls went their separate ways. While Misato had an operation to oversee and Ritsuko the data that the abnormal data gathered from the battle, Mari had an issue of her own to attend to.

* * *

"Asuka, I'm coming in." Mari said quietly to no one in particular as she entered the room where the slime-girl still snoozed away the late afternoon.

Slithering to her best friend's side and surveying her sleeping form, it so became apparent that nothing terrible had befallen her during the intense battle they both had taken part in. Though a bit bruised from the impact of 03's constant assault, Asuka was otherwise fine. It was a sight that brought a sigh of relief to Mari's unadorned lips

"Hey, Princess," Mari spoke as she took a seat upon the edge of Asuka's makeshift bed. "Thanks for saving my butt out there. I guess that makes us even for the time being...no, I take that back. I think I owe you one for last night. Anything you want, it's on me. It's the least I can do."

Mari smiled as she gently stroked what passed for hair on Asuka's head.

"You know, you're really beautiful when you're sleeping like that. Not to say you're not pretty when you're awake, but it's sometimes hidden behind a wall of yelling and gloating." Mari laughed. "But I don't mind. You've always been the one who's pushed me forward when I was depressed or angry, even if you were a jerk about it sometimes."

"I guess that's all I wanted to say." Mari rose from her seated position, returning her long tail to its normal dimensions as she did. "I'll see you tomorrow, Princess."

* * *

Asuka, still under the sway of the spell of her dreams, snored a bit as she dreamed of a far away land where she was an actual princess and of the beautiful, if eccentric, knight who catered to her every whim.

As the sun sank below the horizon, another long day of work at NERV came to an end. Much fuss had been made about the recovery of the now serpentine Unit-03 that now stood silent in one of the base's many cages, awaiting the moment in which its master would return and give direction to its overwhelming power.

Standing on the bridge, just in front of the great beast's face, were Ritsuko and Misato, the Eva's grim smile and vacant gaze leering over them.

"It's hard to believe that just a day or so ago this thing nearly killed the two of us," Misato said in contemplation.

"That is a risk we take by using the Eva as weapons," Ritsuko added. "They are the most powerful weapons humanity has ever devised, and, as you saw yesterday, there is only thin line between that weapon and the raging beast 03 had become."

"So," Misato turned to Ritsuko, poised to cash in on the promise her friend had made. "Are you ready to spill the beans about everything that has happened lately? And I mean it – I'm not going to accept a disturbed stare and some vague statement about the nature of humanity or something this time."

"Of course; a promise is a promise." Ritsuko plainly said. "Meet me at my apartment at around seven, and bring the kids. This is something that all of you need to hear."

"You know, I don't think I've ever been to your place, Ritsuko."

"That is because you've never had a reason to visit... well, that and my cats don't tend to do well with strangers."

"So they're just like you then?" Misato teased.

"Shut up. Just come over at seven and leave your dumb jokes at the door."

"Fine, I'll see you and your cats then."

Misato left the cage with a smile on her face and a giggle permeating from behind her lips. Her and Ritsuko's relationship had always been like this, a back and forth of silly and often barbed remarks that can only be truly shared among those who are the best of friends.

Ritsuko, however, left in a sour mood as she was left alone in the company of great giant before her. Staring at the creature's leering face only brought to mind everything that had been uncovered in the recent past – information that, when pasted together into a single picture, brought alive strange and often horrifying truths about the post-Second Impact world. It was a burden she and she alone had born for months. It was hard to keep bottled up, and there where moments in which Ritsuko wished to write everything she had found down and ship it off for publication to every news outlet the world over. But no one would believe her, it was all to strange and outlandish. Besides, the ears and eyes of NERV were everywhere, one false move and she could very well end up face down in a ditch somewhere.

Ritsuko sighed in frustration. But at least, she thought, she could finally pass all of this on to people who had very little chance of betraying her to the powers that be. Misato was good for that; though she was often goofy and unreliable, she was one to do what was right most of the time, a fact she had proven many times over as NERV's director of operations.

"See you soon," Ritsuko said too late, her friend already long gone.

The blonde scientist, hands nestled firmly in the pockets of her long lab coat, made her way out of NERV's underground base, rehearsing many times over in her mind what she would say in her explanation to Misato and the others.

* * *

Ritsuko's apartment lay in one of the better parts of Tokyo-3, in a building built a few years after Tokyo-3 itself became mankind's final fortress in the battle against the ever-changing world in which they, as a species, had found themselves. Located on the third floor, the apartment itself was a simple one, with one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a small space designated for living, it was all a single person could ever really ask for. Though lacking in decoration, Ritsuko kept in plain view many small objects to truly make the place her own – mostly mementos of the past, pictures from her college days and similar things, and many, many, objects emblazoned with the image of cats.

Ritsuko's affection for cats was a well know fact around NERV HQ, mostly due to the fact that her office was decorated in much the same style as her apartment. Though she could often be seen as a hardheaded and even cold, her keeping and loving small animals almost softened Ritsuko's image in the eyes of her co-workers, almost.

"I'm home..." Ritsuko said tiredly as she entered her apartment and took off her shoes. No one would come to greet her, as her feline companions were away at her grandmother's at the moment while she took part in night after long night of painstaking research. It was lonely to come home to such an empty house, but tonight, at least, her little corner of the world would be full of life and people she cared for.

Moving towards her bedroom where she changed into something more comfortable than a lab coat and miniskirt, Ritsuko rummaged through her supplies and managed to find an old whiteboard she had swiped from HQ sometime ago for reasons she had forgotten and some have used markers. Lacking a projector of some kind, it was the best she could do for a visual aid to go along with her lecture.

Bringing both items to the living room, she leaned the board against the wall and tested each marker, shaking them and then drawing a line across the board. As everything was fine, all that was left to do was to wait for Misato and the others.

One last time, Ritsuko rehearsed in her head her speech, laying out every little fact, figure, and anecdote carefully so that even a child, or Misato, could understand the basics of it all.

"There we go," Ritsuko said as she ran to the end of her mental simulation. "That should do it."

Flopping upon her living room couch for a moment's respite, Ritsuko stared across the room to a digital clock sitting upon a shelf. It was almost seven and her guests would be here any moment. It had been so long since she had been together with so many people at once, it would likely be frustrating, like teaching a group of grade school children advanced mathematics, but it was something that had to be done. With all that had happened lately, she couldn't keep those closest to the problem in the dark much longer.

The buzz of the doorbell filled the otherwise silent apartment. "I guess it's showtime," Ritsuko spoke quietly to herself as she approached the door. "I'm coming!" she announced to her guests.

Upon opening the door, she found Misato, Shinji, Rei, and Mari all crowded around the open doorway. An odd sight – the two animal girls, a mopy teenage boy, and their keeper would not have looked out of place in a comic book or cartoon.

"Hello, doc!" Mari cheerfully greeted her hostess for the evening.

"Hey, Ritsuko." Shinji added.

Rei remained silent, content to hang onto the hem of Shinji's dress shirt as they entered the apartment.

"Well, come on in everyone. Make yourselves at home in the living room and we'll get down to the lecture in a few minutes."

"Lecture?" Misato asked as Ritsuko showed them in.

"Yes, I'll be treating this like a class. It's the only way I could think of doing this."

"Will there be a test, professor?" Misato teased.

"Only if you keep the stupid jokes up." Ritsuko responded, silencing Misato's joking for the moment.

As the rest of the group made themselves comfortable and crowded Ritsuko's couch, the scientist disappeared into the kitchen, fetching something for her guests to drink. Remembering to avoid anything alcoholic for Misato's sake, she soon returned with a few cans of pop and a glass of water for herself.

"Well then, everyone, are you all ready?" Ritsuko said confidently as she took her place in front of the whiteboard.

"Yes!" All but Rei said in unison.

"Well then let's start at the beginning. Can one of you please tell me what the cause of Second Impact was?"

Rei raised one of her taloned wings.

"You don't need to raise your hand, Rei. This isn't a school. But please, go on."

"The official response was that the incident was a caused by a small meteor moving at amazing speed colliding with the Antarctic continent. However, in actuality, it was the awakening of the First Angel that caused the event."

"Very good, Rei. Now can any one tell me when the mutations like those Rei and Mari have began to show up?"

"Ohhhhhh! Choose me, doc! Choose me!" Mari waved her had wildly from in the air as she spoke.

"You... don't have to raise your hand." Ritsuko sighed. "But yes, Mari."

"I'm pretty sure that was about a year or so after Second Impact, because I know for a fact that me, Ayanami, and the princess were all born in 2001."

"Man, you kids were paying more attention then I thought. That is completely correct. Officially it was the nuclear fallout from the supposed meteor impact that caused the mutations to occur. But that isn't true either. That is the heart of the matter here – until recently, no one, even at NERV, knew what actually caused the mutations. However, after doing some research concerning the transformations that have occurred in Units 00, 02, and 03, I think that I have a clear picture of what happened on that day 15 years ago."

"Is that what you've been doing when you were pulling those all-nighters?" Misato asked.

"Yes, I've been going through NERV's archives and medical records and looking for anything related to the mutant children and the Second Impact. But its even more complicated a matter then I had originally thought, this goes far beyond some simple set of genetic mutations."

"Do you swear that everything your saying is going to be the truth and that you're not hiding anything from us, Ritsuko?" Misato was deadly serious; it had taken this long to get Ritsuko to cave in and agree to shed some light on her secret research, there was no room for any lies or half truths when it came to this particular matter.

"I swear on my honor as a scientist," Ritsuko confidently stated.

"Very well, go on."

"Well, to begin. When I was looking over the children's medical records and those of the kids that NERV was taking care of awhile back, something very obvious that I should have seen coming made itself known to me."

"And that was?" Misato Interrupted.

"These mutations aren't genetic at all. There is very little difference between, say, Mari and any normal human being. Any variance in her genetic code can be attributed the usual differences on a genetic level between any two given people. I had to dig deep, down to their waveforms, to find any real difference between a normal person and one afflicted with Second Impact-related mutations."

"Waveform?" Shinji questioned.

"It's a measure of the metaphysical element of a person's existence. I imagine you could technically call it a person's will or even their soul if your willing to bring religion into all of this. On a metaphysical level most humans are exactly the same and adhere to a singular archetype that is more or less the blueprint for our very existence as a species."

The crowd, save for Rei, sat silent, mouths agape. Even in a world where giant robots and mutant humans were an everyday occurrence, the existence of anything similar to a soul was enough to stun a crowd to silence.

"A mutant child, however, has a wave form that is only 99.8 percent similar to that of a normal human being. Normally I would hardly think much of such a small difference, but there is another creature that shares the exact same wave form pattern."

"...What creature is that?" Shinji asked; shakily his words stumbled forth from his mouth in a hurried and almost terrified manner.

"The Angels." Ritsuko said plainly without value or judgment.

"THE ANGELS!?" Everyone but Rei yelled in unison.

"W...what are you trying to say, Ritsuko?" Misato stammered.

"Don't worry. It's nothing horrible. I firmly believe that last .2 percent is simply the ability to project an A.T. Field."

Mari began to squirm nervously, her long, coiled tail twitching back and forth in time with her darting eyes.

"This is something I've suspected since the battle against the 6th Angel. After Mari cut off all communication between Eva 02 and the command center, the computers still managed to catch a few moments in which a second A.T. Field began emanating from within the Eva's cockpit. Since it's impossible for an Eva, or anything else for that matter, to project two A.T. Fields at once, I eventually came to a single conclusion: the mutant children are capable of projecting and using an A.T. Field at will."

"I have to go to the...!" Mari yelled awkwardly as she jumped to a standing position.

"Sit down, Mari. You're not going anywhere." Ritsuko commanded. "It's not a big deal that you can use an A.T. Field – this is true of almost all mutant children. I know for a fact that Rei and Asuka can do the same thing. You're not alone."

"Really?" Mari asked sheepishly as she coiled back into her seat on the coach.

"Really. Considering its connection to your waveform, my working theory is that the A.T. Field is just the physical projection of a being's will, and, quite simply, you kids and the Angels just have an unusually strong will by the virtue of your mutant waveform."

"Doctor." Rei stated.

"What is it, Rei?"

"How is this connected to our physical mutations?"

"I was getting to that...That puzzled me for a very long time and it was just a few days ago that it finally came to me. I'm sure you all remember the incident involving 03, right?"

All nodded in unison.

"Well, while Mari piloted 03 her synch ratio hit levels that shouldn't be physically possible, expanding her A.T. Field to a point where it began to affect the physical space around her. It seems like that hyper A.T. Field is what triggered 03 to assume its current form. Similar incidents have occurred, though not in such a grand form, when Rei fought the 8th Angel. Putting two and two together, my current theory that is that a similar incident occurs when a mutant child is born."

"Our AT fields made us like this?" Mari asked, staring blankly at Ritsuko.

"That's what I think at the moment, yes. Such radical mutations could never occur at a genetic level, but yet here we are. Each mutant child represents in itself a unique and novel sub-species of humankind. And, without the law of survival of the fittest to weed out the weak or inefficient, humans as a whole will be a far more varied species as we move forward in time. It's all actually quite interesting."

"That's a lot to take in, Ritsuko." Misato said clutching her head as if she had a headache.

"I know. It's been hard keeping it all straight in my head all these months," Ritsuko lamented, "but there is one more thing I need to add."

"And that is?" Misato sighed.

"I firmly believe that Second Impact was catalyst that allowed for these mutations to happen in the first place. Something about the awakening of the First Angel caused a change to occur in the human waveform, but only in certain individuals. Once we figure this out, we will have the cause of everything."

Ritsuko breathed deep and then exhaled, a sign of the end of her lecture.

"That's all for now. Do you four have any questions?"

"That was pretty intense, Ritsuko. I think we should all take a break and come back in like fifteen minutes for questions." Misato spoke as she stood and stretched.

"Good idea, take five everyone!"

Dispersing from the coach, everyone began to shuffle off as if exhausted.

As the children shuffled off towards other parts of the apartment to sit and take in all they had just been exposed to, Misato stayed firm planted in the living room where Ritsuko stood and took in the glass of water she had brought to soften the impact upon her person of speaking for nearly an hour straight without break or pause.

"Was all that really true? " Misato asked seriously.

For a moment, Ritsuko paused and looked Misato straight in the eyes, conveying through her gaze the answer her old friend desired.

"Yes, I wouldn't lie about something like this." Ritsuko said simply. "The future of these kids is just as important to me as it is to you."

"Is that because of that little kitty-girl you told me about awhile ago?"

"Partly, yes. Nana is one of the reasons that I became interested in this research in the first place. But on a purely scientific level, these children are the next stage of human evolution. For that reason alone, it is necessary to learn as much as we can about them while their development as a population is still in its infant stages. The more we know, the easier it will be to integrate them into the existing human population and make the transition as clean as possible for everyone involved.

"Once the Angels are all gone, these are the problems we'll be facing as species in the next few decades. I firmly believe this and will do everything that I can to grease the wheels of progress while we still have the luxury of doing so. The fact that many of NERV's secrets are tied to these kids is just the icing on the cake so to speak."

Misato was stunned; it was rare for Ritsuko to stand with such for conviction for anything, let alone a group of people she barely had a connection to.

"That's pretty noble of you, Ritsuko and I guess that means we're on the same page here... But what about the Commander? I'm sure he and the council will be on your ass about this sooner or later."

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "I'm not worried about those old men. Like I said before, they need me. But the Commander... He worries me."

"Why is that?"

"He seems like he is planning something... every time I see him, he looks lost in thought. Like he is looking at something just beyond the horizon that he can't quite grasp."

Misato cocked her head to the side in confusion.

"When do you ever interact with Commander Ikari, Ritsuko?"

Ritsuko nervously took another drink of her water, her hand shaking in rhythm with the rapidly increasing beat of her heart. "I'm not going to answer that."

"And I thought we were finally getting past all this secrecy." Misato teased.

"We are... we are. But I really can't explain this to you, I'm sorry." Ritsuko said through her nervousness.

" As long as your not hiding anything related to this problem, I'm ok with you keeping a few secrets to yourself, Ritsu-nyan."

Misato smiled wide and broad at her friend in an almost mocking manner.

"Goddammit, Misato." Ritsuko sighed.

* * *

Back in the bedroom three children sat upon Ritsuko's bed surrounded by the various knickknacks the room's owner had accrued in the near decade she had lived in the fortress that was Tokyo-3. Chatting and sipping on the drinks that had provided to them by Ritsuko, the weight of her speech still weighed heavily on each of their minds. With so many revelations had been packed into such a small space, there was much to digest.

"So, Puppy, what do you think of all of this?" Mari sat beside Rei who in turn was sandwiched between the snake girl and the quiet and often mopy boy with whom she had shared many long afternoons as of late.

"I don't really know...it's all so strange." Shinji replied with his eyes firmly fixed on the top of his drink.

"I'm with you on that one. But it's good to know I'm not some weirdo for having an A.T. Field and all that junk. It was just luck of the draw that me, Ayanami, and Asuka all ended up like this. And I'm okay with that. It's just who we are. Right, bird-girl?"

Mari gently nudged Rei, interrupting her personal reflection and bringing her back to the real world.

"Yes..." Rei nodded quietly. "We are no more then who we are."

"It's still strange though!" Shinji added.

"And why is that, Puppy?" Mari's voice became aggressive and fiery.

"It's not normal..." Shinji cowered under the snake-girl's gaze.

Mari stood upon her tail, reaching her full and imposing height as she leered over the cowering Shinji. Reaching down, she took him by the hair and forced their faces to meet.

"I've heard from Misato about your problems with me and the Princess. I know that you're not a bad guy, Puppy, but you have to cut this crap out. There is nothing weird about any of except maybe for our appearance and that is skin deep at best. Hell, you've even proven you're totally okay with Ayanami despite her having big ol' wings and claws. So what the hell is the problem with the rest of us?"

Shinji squirmed against Mari's grip, hoping to free himself before he'd actually have to explain himself and his prejudices to an angry lamia.

"Ayanami is special..."

Mari shook her head in dejection, how stubborn could one person be? She wondered

"No, she's only special to you. As far as we kids go, she's no different from me or any of the other mutant kids.

"You're wrong!" Shinji yelled.

"No, Shinji. I'm not. And as long as you keep on insisting that reality works like that, your world is only going to keep getting small and smaller till you have no one left."

Readying her free hand, Mari quickly punched Shinji squarely in the stomach, causing him to wince in pain.

"Wh– Why did you do that?!" Shinji yelled through the pain.

"You deserve it. And trust me, you'll thank me later when this is all over." Mari smiled. "And I'm sorry for beating him up, Ayanami. But I can't let this one go."

Rei nodded. "Please... Go easy on him."

"Are you done...?" Shinji spat.

"Just one more thing."

And within a second, another punch to the gut. Sending Shinji to the floor and leaving Mari to stand over her fellow Eva pilot's broken form.

"Your world is only as big as you let it be, Puppy. And soon or later you're going to have to let people like me and Asuka into it. The sooner you learn that the better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few questions for the Doc. See you two later!"

Mari slithered away as Shinji regained his ability to stand and managed to sit upon the bed once more. Wincing in great pain, Rei quickly came to his side and sheltered him within her great, white wings.

"Are you ok?" She asked.

"I'm fine, she didn't hit me to hard. But god, how rude was that?" He spouted in anger.

For a long moment, Rei was silent. As if contemplating something.

"Ikari, though Makinami was in the wrong to do that to you, the point she was trying to make was a valid one." Rei stated stoically.

"You're on her side?!" Shinji yelled as he attempted to escape Rei's soft embrace.

"No... I will always be on your side. But I think you would be happier if you let others into your world, even if it is just those you see on a daily basis. Can you do that for me, Ikari?"

Rei's soft wings and kind eyes were to much for even Shinji's sense of self-loathing; he could not resist, try as he might.

"All right. I promise." Shinji calmed himself. No longer fighting, he settled with his head laid across Ayanami's lap as her feathers washed over every part of his body, forming a soft barrier against the outside world and all of its ills.

"Can we stay like this for awhile?" Shinji timidly asked.

"Yes, it would make me happy." Rei answered in a kind voice.

For a long time, the pair simply sat together, enjoying each other's warmth in a simple and pure manner.

"So what now, Doc?" Mari asked as she slithered back into the living room.

"That's a good question, Mari." Ritsuko responded. "For now, the problem of the Angels yet remains, so all I can ask is that you kids keep fighting the good fight while I keep up my research in the meantime."

A loud yawn interrupted the seriousness of the conversation, causing Mari to laugh loudly.

"You tried, Misato?" Mari asked with a giggle.

"Very. I think we should call it a night." She yawned again.

"I agree. "Ritsuko stated. "It's been a long day for everyone. You should go get Shinji and Ayanami and get back home."

"That might take awhile, I'm afraid." Mari said sarcastically.

"And why is that?"

Mari motioned for the two adults of the group to quietly follow her to the bed room, where, after turning the corner, the sight of Shinji asleep with his head on Rei's lap as the bird-girl ruffled the hair on on his head gently with one of her talons.

"Well then." Ritsuko said. "I'll take these two home later."

"Thanks, Ritsuko." Misato said sleepily. "I'll see you later."

With that Misato and Mari left, both giggling at the sight of Rei and Shinji's very couply scene.

"Oh, to be young and in love." Ritsuko lamented.

* * *

As a new and peaceful days settles upon Tokyo-3, Seele plots to reclaim that which was stolen from them. Sending a new child to NERV to do their bidding, the beginnings of the end looms ever closer as he brings with him a mysterious Eva modeled upon the progenitor himself. Who is this child and what does he want with Shinji and the Evas?

Find out next time in "Closer to the heart!"


End file.
